Country guide east by Farm Business Communications

More farm families squabble in court  24 | Scientists on glyphosate  42

eastern EDITION / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / January 2018

Sharing Gets them more

This Quebec farm gets the right people to believe PG. 13

CROPS GUIDE Precision farming that pays  33 Fly it right Before you power up that drone  36

yes

can The Roelands transform HR theory into real growth  18

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6 MACHINERY Amazone goes high tech

Should this high-tech German design be your next sprayer?

Inside country guide / Vol. 137 Issue no. 1 / JANUARY 2018

Business

36 CROPS GUIDE

hat’s for dinner, w Canada? There’s got to be opportunity when a country’s eating patterns change faster than its farms.

s ix shareholders This Quebec farm based its growth target on recruiting top staffers. The plan is working.

courting disaster More than 2,000 Canadian farms are in court, mainly fighting amongst themselves.

t he big 4 While company mergers continue, is anyone concerned about the farmers?

lyphosate: g the real science Here’s what actual scientists say about glyphosate safety.

i t’s a new market Get ready to hold onto farm equipment for longer.

etting ‘thank you!’ g right When the people around you feel appreciated, productivity goes up 12 per cent.

33 The ‘precise’ in

precision farming

36 Don’t just fly it out of the box

38 #PestPatrol 40 Weather

Guide Life

50 T he table — and who’s around it 52 Health 53 Hanson Acres 54 Reflections

i ntuition: when it’s the right time Darrell Wade wraps up series with advice that hits home.

18 Farm feedback By finding great ways to listen to their employees, Adrian and Jodi Roelands are building the farm of their dreams. Importantly, the same strategy is making work more satisfying and enjoyable for their employees. Even their customers win, with better quality shipments. So, could it work on your farm too?

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COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562

2018 — Is this the ‘year of destiny?’ As we head toward spring, there’s a growing ambitiousness among many Canadian farmers, and an edge to their certainty that it is crucial to make progress before the year is out

EDITORIAL STAFF Editor: Tom Button 12827 Klondyke Line, Ridgetown, ON N0P 2C0 tom.button@fbcpublishing.com (519) 674-1449 Fax (519) 674-5229 Senior Business Editor: Maggie Van Camp mvancamp@fbcpublishing.com (905) 986-9991 Fax (905) 986-9991 Production Editor: Ralph Pearce ralph.pearce@fbcpublishing.com (226) 448-4351 Field Editor: Lisa Guenther lisa.guenther@fbcpublishing.com Field Editor: Shannon VanRaes shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com Online Editor: Greg Berg country-guide.ca Design & Layout: Jenelle Jensen

I’m an optimist. Are you? Let’s find out. Overall, our farm sector is healthier than it has been at any time in my memory. Nor do I see any precipices in our immediate future. There can always be bad news. But really, who actually thinks that interest rates are going to jump into double digits by the year’s end, or that the loonie will trade at a premium to the U.S. dollar? There could be black swans, of course, which are by definition unpredictable. But except for the abandoning of ethanol supports, which seems altogether unlikely, it’s hard to imagine many black swans that wouldn’t help rather than hurt our farms. Still, I keep coming back to what I think is the key finding in Canada’s most recent farm census, which showed that the average farm in Canada climbed to 820 acres in 2016 from 779 in 2011. That works out to a five per cent gain over five years, or, as you’ve already worked out, about a one per cent a year rise. Of course the actual numbers vary from farm to farm, but I continue to think that the great unanswered question is not how much our farms grew in those five years, but how much they wanted to grow. Yes, we know there are a lot of farms with late-career farmers who probably aren’t that interested in growth. But don’t overlook the fact that a lot of those farms are multigenerational operations now, or would be multi-generational if they had been able to expand.

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

The great image I have is that our farmers have enhanced their management capabilities so dramatically in the last 10 years, we now have farmers in place who, if they had the chance, could farm 25 or maybe even 50 per cent more than the country’s current land base, essentially using existing technology. I admit it’s a number that I have pulled out of thin air, but I expect your guess isn’t very far off mine. In the next few issues, we will write more about this, but this January is finding more of us with a nagging sense that either Canada’s farms will have to grow, so they are generating income from more acres, or they are going to have increase their net income per acre, probably by an amount that exceeds a reasonable expectation for commodity production. So, are we optimists? Well, every neighbourhood that I’ve inquired about across the country seems to have farmers in it who are eager to take on the challenge. They’re ready to grab the reins in a way this country has never seen before, based on their individual visions for how a sustainable, profitable farm can be built.

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Not all will succeed, or will have the chance to succeed. But I am sure in my bones that the winners will be world class. Indeed, they’re world class already.

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Agriculture will be different in 2023, I guess that makes me an optimist. Am I getting it right? Let me know at tom.button@fbcpublishing.com.

The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Country Guide and Glacier FarmMedia LP attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Country Guide and Glacier FarmMedia LP cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. Use or non-use of any information is at the reader’s sole risk, and we assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader of this publication based on any and all information provided.

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Great production starts here. Let’s talk soil. “Everything starts in the soil. Whether it’s in your dairy barn or your cash crops, everything comes from the land to begin with. So, if you look after the land, you look after your bottom line.” Thomas Farrell

RG&G Farms Kincardine, Ontario Farming: Dairy, cash crops Soil health strategy: Cover crops after wheat, composting manure, min-till Soil story: We started cover crops after wheat six years ago to take up nutrients from liquid manure. It worked so well we’re starting cover crops after corn as well. Better soil is growing better feed, healthier cows and increased milk production. Last word: It doesn’t cost a lot to change the system. It costs a lot more to fall behind. Twitter: @ThomasFarrell23

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machinery

The new AmaSpot sprayers use sensors that can detect weeds and spray chemical only where needed, even at night. Photo: Amazone

Amazone

goes high tech

Is this the next brand you should look at in sprayers? By Scott Garvey / CG Machinery Editor

here’s no shortage of short-line ag implement manufacturers, and in almost any of them, the corporate executives will tell you they are now playing in a crowded marketplace. But the head of Germany-based Amazone is more bullish, saying his firm has the recipe for growth, and that he’ll be able to continue finding new markets while strengthening business in existing ones.

The ZG-TS spreader line gets new digital features, including WindControl, which can make it possible to get even spread patterns on windy days. Photo: Amazone

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Indeed, it seems business really is picking up for Amazone, where today, 80 per cent of production is exported outside of Germany and Austria, says Christian Dreyer, Amazone’s CEO, to a crowd of journalists during an international media field day in Germany in September. “We’re optimistic.” All of Amazone’s newest application and seeding equipment relies on a big digital component to offer farmers increased efficiencies. It’s a high-tech market niche that Dreyer wants his company to dominate. “It’s where farming needs to go to survive,” Dreyer says. “Our aim is to offer high-tech solutions to farmers worldwide.” The company has been a prominent sprayer manufacturer in Europe for years, and it offers a line of both self-propelled and pull-type models. However, only the pull types will be available in Canada. But don’t think that means that all the best sprayer technology will stay behind in Europe. In fact, the firm’s newest pull-type sprayer, the UX AmaSpot, is a prime example of Dreyer’s intention to make cutting-edge digital technology the emphasis across the company’s full offering. This sprayer uses an “Intelligent Nozzle System” that can significantly minimize the amount of chemical used per acre. Using GreenSense fluorescent sensors that detect chlorophyll and can differentiate between green plants and bare ground, an on-board digital system identifies growing weeds and sprays herbicides only where needed.

When a sensor detects a green plant, the appropriate nozzle is activated with centimetre accuracy, even at speeds of 20 km/h or at night, based on a boom using a special nozzle that can open or close in just two milliseconds. The UX AmaSpot models began production in late 2017 alongside the brand’s larger and more conventional UX 01 Super Series pull-type models. Although the UX 01 Supers won’t get the selective spraying system offered on the UX AmaSpot, they offer their own advanced technology along with larger sizes and capacities. Tank sizes range from 4,200 to 6,200 litres (1,110 to 1,638 U.S. gallons) and boom widths from 27 to 40 metres (88 to 131 feet). The UX 01 Super Series offers the ContourControl boom system with SwingStop yaw control. SwingStop uses a pair of hydraulic cylinders to control fore and aft boom movement with the help of sensors that compare the boom tip speeds to the sprayer’s ground speed. Up to six Ultrasonic sensors also allow the boom to contour and maintain a constant height above ground over uneven terrain. Each side of the boom can operate independently of the other. In turns, sensors can calculate the actual ground speed of each individual nozzle and alter the application rate along the entire boom to ensure completely even product coverage. Nozzles can be spaced as close as 25 centimetres apart, which allows the boom to be lowered very close to the top of the crop canopy. For those who need to apply dry product like granular fertilizer, the company has something new to offer as well in its ZG-TS pull-type spreaders. Two models in that line with 212- and 284-bushel tanks offer features that can improve spreading accuracy, even in windy conditions.

An on-board anemometer measures wind speed and direction as well as gusts and gives that information to the ZG-TS spreader’s computer. That allows it to compensate by changing the spinner disc speed and position on each side of the spreader. To confirm the spread is accurate, WindControl also uses 14 radar monitors to evaluate the pattern. If the wind becomes too strong for the system to compensate, it sends an automatic alarm to the operator. The computer can also handle section control to minimize overlap or limit spread on one side when working along the edge of a field. The computer can use data from weigh cells under the tank to calculate if the actual application rate corresponds to the programmed setting. Underneath the spreader is a steerable axle that keeps it following directly behind the tractor tires even in turns. “Our strategy is to become specialists in crop production,” says Dreyer. “We’re offering everything other than tractors and combines.” CG Christian Dreyer is CEO of Germanybased Amazone, which is still a family-owned company. Photo: Scott Garvey

The two models in the ZG-TS pull-type dry spreader line get 212- and 284-bushel capacities. Photo: Amazone

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

What’s for dinner,

Canada?

Change is growing a lot faster in our grocery stores than on our farms. So is opportunity

he food that got put on just about any dinner plate in Canada 30 years ago was the same as got put on all the other plates. Every kitchen cooked up meat and potatoes with a side of veg. Yes, basic tomato-based pastas could sometimes be served but they were definitely “ethnic,” while “convenience” described any meal cooked in less than 30 minutes. What’s for dinner tonight? If you’re like most Canadians, your food selection and preparation preferences have evolved dramatically, and so have your expectations. And if yours haven’t, your kids’ certainly have. In fact, food trends are changing so quickly that you’ll probably eat something tonight that you wouldn’t have considered even five years ago. Now, think of what you’re producing in your fields and in your barns. Is there a disconnect? And if so, is it something we should target, either as individual farmers or as an overall industry? It’s clear that Canada’s food insiders believe we’re missing a trick. “All businesses need to be mindful of macro trends so you can future-proof your company, even if it’s a commodity,” says Jo-Ann McArthur, president

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Madeleine Baerg

and chief strategist at Nourish Food Marketing, based in Toronto. Victoria, B.C.-based food writer, bestselling author and recipe developer Eric Akis agrees, saying farmers need to put more priority on what their customers want. In a way, Akis is sympathetic. “Canadian farmers work hard and at the end of a long day, I’m not sure how many want to sit down and start doing scads of consumer research,” he says. But he is also adamant. “I’m sure many know they must now do that to be successful.” Put it to the test yourself. The next time you’re in the city, Akis suggests visiting supermarkets just before suppertime when they are at their busiest. Watch what consumers buy, which areas of the stores are most congested, and which shelves need restocking. “That gives me an instant snapshot of what Canadians are eating these days and helps explain why some farm products outshine others in sales,” Akis says. Then when you’re back home, round out your experience with a quick (but regular) Google through food trend predictions. “There’s no shortage of food trends. When there is

agreement on things, it’s a pretty safe bet that that trend will come true,” says Akis. To start you off on the right foot in 2018, here is a summarized rundown on some of those trends and why they matter to our farm businesses in Canada. 1. Convenience In 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted his generation’s grandchildren would work three hours a day and only by choice, thanks, of course, to technology. Almost 100 years later, people are more rushed, more scheduled, more stretched than ever. Today’s consumers are prioritizing convenience in every kind of packed, portioned, prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner possibility. The move away from daily meal preparation is extreme. “We’re seeing a huge societal shift,” says McArthur. “Consumers are cooking as a hobby on the weekends but during the week they want something really simple. The demand used to be for meals that could be prepared in 30 minutes. Now we’re seeing that’s too much: it’s all about meals that are pre-assembled or meal kits.” The drastic changes in consumer consumption patterns mean there is loads of room in the marketplace for innovation right now. While there will always be demand for commodities, the biggest success will come to agri-businesses that creatively meet consumers’ new needs. Consumers are not just demanding simplicity and convenience at the preparation and consumption end. Last June, Amazon purchased Whole Foods for almost $14 billion. The acquisition signals a monumental coming change in much more than Whole Foods’ traditional organic/natural/speciality food category. While online shopping has been ballooning in most product categories in Canada, it has lagged in groceries based on inadequate and inefficient delivery infrastructure. The Amazon-Whole Foods deal changes all that. By purchasing Whole Foods, Amazon now has a geographically distributed back end in place to service an online system. “There’s an Ontario-based company called Grocery Gateway that pioneered home grocery delivery but they couldn’t make it work profitably,” says McArthur. “But then Longos (in the GTA) purchased Grocery Gateway. Longos had the back

end. That’s what you’re seeing with the Amazon and Whole Foods deal. Whole Foods is just the first step. Amazon will be driving a lot of what will be going on in the future. Retailers should be worried.” Consolidation is the way of the world today. As huge companies like Amazon claim bigger and bigger shares of the consumer pie, farmers must realize that commodity production and marketing will be forced to accommodate new priorities and demands. And McArthur says too that they need to consider that trying to get into that circle of brands will be tougher and tougher. 2. Health Arguably the most positive trend in food today is an increasing awareness and prioritization of health. Overall, 25 per cent of U.S. adults now seek out pre- and probiotics, while 47 per cent look to add more fibre to their diets. Manufacturers are racing to comply: 62 per cent of all new products in 2015 and 2016 claimed fibre on their packaging. Plus, there has been a marked decrease in the use of artificial flavours and preservatives as consumers demand ingredients they understand. “The search for digestive health is something we’re seeing not just as a result of an aging population, but it’s top of mind for Millennials as well. They’re more concerned with health than a generation ago and rightly so. We’re not getting healthier. We have an obesity epidemic. A lot of consumers are looking at conventional wisdom and reconsidering it,” says McArthur. “People are seeing food partly as a solution.” “Low fat” options are losing market traction as consumers realize how packed in sugar and other unhealthy ingredients they often are. On the flip side, healthy fats are seeing a resurgence after being relegated for years to the “unhealthy” category. Local is beginning to shoulder out organic as consumers realize organic does not mean no pesticides. And slowly, the focus on weight is shifting instead to a focus on well-being. “People are far more aware of how food affects them in performance, sleep, etc. People are now seeing that everything is connected. It’s about balance,” McArthur says.

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COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

The focus on health means farmers must accommodate consumers’ need for information about production practices. Currently, consumers have real and growing concern with the use of crop protection (including glyphosate), antibiotics, hormones, GMOs, and more. Whether such concerns are justified and reasonable, they are real and they are entrenched, and the old “just trust me” standards of communicating with customers simply won’t work anymore. Given that consumers vote with their wallets, deciding that you don’t feel like answering consumers’ questions, calming their fears or responding to their needs has and will continue to have a direct bottomline impact on farmers. GMOs are a case in point, says McArthur. “I think the GMO conversation has not been done well. If you talk to consumers, they don’t know what GMO stands for but they will tell you that it’s bad. Flat-out bad. And yet, would we have fed the world without GMOs? The industry, however you want to define it, needs to do a better job of educating consumers. Hopefully it’s not too late.”

There’s no shortage of food trends,” says food writer Eric Akis. The difference now is how many consumers are paying higher prices to get food from sources they trust 10

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

3. Personalization If you’ve hosted a dinner party of any size anytime lately, chances are you’ve had the challenge of serving food around multiple special diets dictated by dietary restrictions and self-reported food sensitivities. Gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, keto, paleo, vegan, raw: the list of limitations can stump even the most creative cook. In all likelihood, this hyper-personalization of food will only become more extreme as technology offers new outlets for our increasing preoccupation with self. “I think it’s coming from how we raised our Millennial children. We told them they were special. Everyone got a trophy. Everyone got to customize their order at Starbucks, their playlist. Now it’s starting to manifest into food,” says McArthur. The newest option is DNA testing. With a simple swab of one’s cheek, a lab can now tell you all kinds of information about how your body functions. Sound too extreme to be true? Some companies are banking big dollars on the technology. Campbell’s Soup Co. recently purchased Habit, a San Francisco-based meal delivery startup that customizes food based on an individual’s biology, metabolism and personal goals.

What does hyper-personalization mean for farmers? As consumers get used to being catered to on a more and more individualized basis, opportunities for niche products will balloon. Farmers will need to be both proactive and agile to capture rapidly changing opportunities. 4. Story Increasingly, consumers want to know who is behind their food. “Food is a very intimate thing. We put it into bodies. We really want to be able to trust whoever is creating that food,” says McArthur. Five years ago, Chris Van Hooydonk quit his job as executive chef at an exclusive B.C. winery restaurant. Some thought he was crazy to go out on his own, especially given his unconventional plan. He was sure his timing was exactly right, though, and that diners were hungry for a new experience. With wife, Mikkel, Van Hooydonk built Backyard Farm: a chef ’s table-style, private function only, elite dining room that caters to just 20 people at a time. Using locally sourced “real” ingredients, Van Hooydonk creates an interactive dining and food-education experience. He’s blown even his own expectations out of the water. In every service category, would-be customers face a six-month waitlist. This, despite the fact that he’s operating in a very tiny, very sleepy town. And it gets even more incredible: 80 to 90 per cent of his clientele are returning customers, which is an unheard of statistic in any food service business, let alone one so new. Even more impressive in this heavily tourism-dependent region, the vast majority of customers aren’t tourists at all; they’re locals. “I’ve got way more business coming my way than I can accommodate, which tells me people are eager to experience food culture,” says Van Hooydonk. A decade ago, the concept wouldn’t have worked, he says. “The number of people consumed with the distractions of iPhones, Netflix, Twitter, etc., has spurred a New Age idealism in food culture. People are hungry to have real experiences. They are willing to invest in creating a memory.” But, there’s more to it than novelty. “The reason I was willing to try this was the knowledge that clients were increasingly curious about where their food was com-

ing from. Instead of just having something to eat, they wanted to know, to experience, to dig deeper,” he says. “Some of the better restaurants in Vancouver, they were already getting back to the history of food culture, already slowing things down a little, already talking about food sourcing. What we’ve moved towards is much more about communication, and that’s a very good thing.” Consumers aren’t just looking for a “story” via high-end, occasional dining experiences. They’re now looking to get to know their food and their food producers in all kinds of ways. Multinationals like Campbell’s Soup, Unilever, General Mills and more are “hemorrhaging money,” says McArthur, as consumers opt for craft, niche and specialty companies that they feel are more trustworthy than megacompanies. From tiny rural towns to Canada’s largest cities, farmers markets are booming

Make sense of your money

across the country as consumers look for opportunities to “get to know” food and food production. Vancouver Island’s dozen or so farmers markets are “busy, happy places”, reports Akis. He says interactions between customers and sellers at the markets are authentic and personal as growers and consumers seek to learn from each other. “Sometimes it gets to feel like a bit of a love-in when consumers tell a farmer how much they enjoyed what they bought from them the week before,” Akis says. “Customer purchases let farmers quickly know what they are interested in buying, or even what they should grow if they keep asking for something they don’t have. Farmers get to tell consumers why they make the choices they do and some of the challenges they face.” Continued on page 12

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COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS Are we up to the challenge? The big food trends of 2017, summarized from Nourish Food Marketing’s 2017 Trend Recap: • Increased demand for food with “functional benefits” (examples: sprouted grains, pre- and probiotics, fermented foods). • Increased demand for fibre to support good digestive health. • Focus shifting from weight to well-being. • Consumers pushing for “real” ingredients: out with the artificial flavours and preservatives; in with ingredients customers understand. • “Free from allergen” options taking off as dietary restrictions and self-reported food sensitivities continue to increase. • Healthy convenience: meal kits and washed/peeled/sliced options growing, especially in healthy options like veggies and veggie-based sides. • Traditional foods being “snackified” for eat-on-the-go convenience. New options include pre-packed hard boiled eggs, no-spoonneeded granola bites, even single-serving oka cheese. • Food becoming hyper-personalized: “nutrigenomics” — the precise determining of one’s unique nutrient requirements based on DNA testing — is now reality. • Consumers want a shorter distance from farm gate to dinner plate: origin stories (especially local) are increasingly important to consumers. • Mindful consumption, including decreasing food waste and increasing plant-based products, a growing priority as consumers recognise their choices matter. • Ethnic food is in: per capita consumption of ethnic options is increasing at three times the rate of total food. 12

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Only 10 per cent of Canadians have ever been on a farm,” McArthur points out. “We’ve become so disconnected.” The connection between buyer and seller fosters sales and loyalty in a way a flyer or a conventional advertisement simply cannot. If you’re not planning to start up your own Van Hooydonk-style chef ’s table or open a booth at a neighbourhood farmers market, how can you translate the demand for “‘story” to success in your farm business? McArthur says it comes down to radical transparency: something all farmers need to practice. “There is a perception that there are small hobby farms and there are big corporate mega-farms and nothing in between. People don’t understand that most farms are actually in the middle,” she says. “Farmers need to be inviting people in. If you can invite them in and help them understand, that will go a long way. A new statistic says that only 10 per cent of Canadians have ever been on a farm. We’ve

become so disconnected from how our food is produced. As new generations come up, they are getting further and further away from the farm. We need to educate.” Consumers’ demand for story doesn’t only mean more work for producers: for innovative farmers, it may bring opportunity too. As the Little Potato Company has proven, even products typically viewed as commodities can be branded if they are attached to a message that resonates with consumers. What’s next? The pace of change in our world is faster than ever in every area, including food. Whereas farm success used to be based on one’s ability to produce quality product, the evidence is building that tomorrow’s success will also require enormous adaptability, innovativeness and a willingness to listen to one’s customers. CG

SIX Photography: Studio Nala

shareholders With family and non-family ownership, Marie-Claude Mainville’s management of this Quebec farm may become a new Canadian pattern By Ralph Pearce and Maggie Van Camp

ack in 1979, friends Jan Van Gennip and Orance Mainville decided to join forces to get into the feedlot business. Van Gennip had the farm, Mainville brought his knowledge of cattle and business, and together they formed Fermes Janor. Since then, Mainville (now semi-retired) has been joined by his daughter Marie-Claude, and many partners have come and gone in what’s now called “Groupe Janor.” But the corporate collective business model has remained. Together, with four other shareholders, the Mainvilles manage two farms; one near Farnham, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships and the second southwest of Montreal at Saint-Anicet along the St. Lawrence River. The other shareholders are Benoit Cusson, Denis Roy, Emmanuel Decelles and Jean-Marc Paradis. Together with Marie-Claude, the five are full-time employees along with eight other workers carrying out the day-to-day operations. In total the team markets 7,000 head of beef cattle annually from feedlots at the two locations and also produces mainly corn, soybeans and wheat in rotation on 3,600 acres of highly variable soils (about

three quarters corn, 15 to 20 per cent soybeans and the remainder in wheat). Importantly, the shareholders are all actively involved in the corporation and deeply connected through family and employment. Two of the current shareholders are long-term employees and are the current field and barn managers. When the farm needed a specialized operator, Marie-Claude’s partner/husband Benoit Cusson stepped up. When they needed someone for management and help in the office, they found Jean-Marc Paradis through his wife. For some shareholders, the ownership strategy is a way to recognize the value of their input into the business and for others, it was a way to attract and retain specific skills, says Marie-Claude Mainville. Mainville is responsible for the financial, banking, and buying operations as well as crop marketing. Basically, she’s in charge of the paper side of the business, including ensuring the farms are compliant with strong environmental laws in Quebec. She also leads the ownership and management in decision-making on top of working with Paradis on Continued on page 14

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

human resources and being involved outside the company on boards related to feedlot production. “I’m probably the one who speaks more with all the others on different levels to link everything,” says Mainville. “For example, when it’s time to decide if we buy new equipment, we decide all together, but I am the central point.” For Mainville, the challenges are many, from external pressures like the volatility of the livestock market and the limited availability of land in Quebec, to internal issues like managing operations across two locations. However, Mainville says it’s important to keep it in perspective, and although they all want to make money, they need to have fun doing it. The volatility within the market remains the most stressful part of managing the farm. “That makes our financial status highly variable, so that adds stress. You don’t know if you can invest, because it might change in six months,” says Mainville. Asked if she considers herself an innovator, she dismisses the notion, noting that although they do have a precision seeder with GPS and they adopted cover crops a few years ago (trying inter-cropping in 2017), they’re “somewhere in the middle” technologically, like many farms in the region. Yet the six-shareholder arrangement for their operation is innovative. Although such relationships are fairly common in business, in farming they are rare. In this case, the overall organization begins with a network of companies. The ownership structure is that Ferme Janor (Orance and Marie-Claude) is the parent company and is a shareholder of the other companies. The four other shareholders have shares in the companies they work for (Fermes Roda, Fermes Richard, Ferme Opso and Ferme EDL).

Why a shareholder plan? Marie-Claude Mainville’s answer comes quickly: “You can’t be afraid to bring in the people who are key to the business.”

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

AN ALBERTA COMPARISON Reid Wilkie, a lawyer from Smith and Hersey in Medicine Hat, Alta., is seeing more of these types of structures being used on farms, as farm size increases and as farms transition to the next generation, although it’s still more common to see a partnership owned by several companies, he says. Wilkie says some farms are using this multi-prong strategy to separate their enterprises, such as cattle versus cropping versus hogs. It also helps with big-value estate planning with multiple children, and can help navigate thorny family issues and operational differences by not farming in one large company. For example, if one brother wants to expand while the other is more risk averse, separate corporations can be set up for each, with Mom and Dad holding the shares of the parent company. The strategy also works well for separating enter-

prises and for sharing ownership of enterprises that carry more liability, such as custom work, so no assets are put into the custom work corporation. For one 65-quarter farm, Wilkie created this type of structure to help split the land three ways according to time invested in the farm and situations of three sons. The three brothers still share equipment in the common corporation and wrote joint venture agreements to work together. There are more legal and accounting costs to operating multiple structures. “You can still quasi-farm together,” says Wilkie. “But you need a separate set of books for each of them.” Wilkie warns though that it’s complex and requires a lawyer to carefully consider all the tax consequences and to ensure the corporations are not considered “linked.” Since it’s complicated, Wilkie adds, agriculturesmart professionals are a must, especially if you are offering a share plan to non-family employees. For example, he says, if you have a cattle operation,

and you have an employee you want to grant shares to, you can have one company own all the cattle and a different company own the land. That way if you make the employee a shareholder, you can do it in the cattle company (where their good management skills with cattle will pay off) and they won’t then be participating in the value growth of the land since the land is in a different company. One other thing of note, Wilkie says, is that in the event you bring in a non-family member as a shareholder, it is essential that you have a quality USA (unanimous shareholder’s agreement) in place so the employee is limited in what they can do with those shares. “You wouldn’t want them being sold to some other person without your consent, or being given to an ex-spouse in a divorce,” he says. Wilkie also emphasizes the need to design a solid exit plan right from the beginning.

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BUSINESS

That’s something I don’t see very often in farming,” says Mainville. Because employees like Jean-Marc Paradis (below) are shareholders, “we’re always trying the best for the farm.”

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

ADDING A NEW SHAREHOLDER When a new shareholder enters the Janor Groupe, they freeze the value to keep the accumulated value for the existing shareholders. Then the new associate receives participative shares so they will now share any growth in value of the company. Mainville sees a major strategic value in the approach. “You can’t be afraid to bring in people who are key to the business,” she says. The strategy, she says, means they “share the capital from the farm… not just a salary, but also sharing the value of your farm,” and she says it can be a powerful attraction, helping ensure the farm attracts and retains people who will drive its performance. “That’s something I don’t see very often in farming,” she says. “Within the operation, we’re always trying to see the best for the farm — what’s coming and what’s best for the animals.”

Annually they also review share value, trying to balance between the value of the business (i.e. its value if they were putting it on the market) and their annual performance numbers, says Mainville. “We all have to think of the company survival if one of us were to leave or die,” she says. When retiring, the shareholder will receive payment, some as a loan (capital plus interest) and some via straight dividends, but based on the company’s capacity, and they are paid monthly or annually over a long period in a system similar to a pension. Again, though, the focus is on building a plan that works for the individual, so there’s some flexibility in the system and they can evaluate the best way to pay at the time the shareholder leaves. “We have an excellent fiscal adviser,” says Mainville. “If we agree with the person

who leaves, you’re not obliged to follow exactly the convention.” At the beginning of their agreement, the percentage of participation was proportionate to the money invested. Denis Roy went to the bank and took a loan, not a big amount but enough to show his commitment. Shareholders with a college degree were able to obtain funds from the provincial agriculture support program. This money was put in special shares and accounts for the total of the shareholder. (Quebec offers up to $50,000 for starting farmers.) The owners/managers of Janor also participate in local farm associations, sharing their thoughts and experiences, and are well known in the feedlot industry in Quebec. “We are influencers.” says Mainville. “We often have visitors to the farm, including agricultural students and veterinary students. We’re trying to give them a good look, a good vision of what they can become. And it

might be a surprise to see how a feedlot operates and the business side of it.” It’s also part of their outlook on farming and life, sharing what they know with people who want to learn. “We don’t have any secrets and we’re very generous with how we open the door,” she says. Building local market opportunity is a challenge since there’s no large-scale processing plant nearby and much of the beef from the region is processed in Ontario. “Presently we’re working with the association and trying to create “Quebec Beef,” so that the consumer can buy beef that they know has been produced here.” Mainville sees enormous value in connecting with consumers. “Today, we are obliged to do that, or else they’ll leave us… We have to be sure that people will eat beef, and show them that we’re good and that there are actual people behind the steak they are eating.”

In fact, she believes that more and more consumers are listening — more than she had earlier thought. A SYSTEM BASED ON TRUST Group managing with six shareholders on two geographically separate locations means everyone has to trust each other. This trust is uniquely built into their business ownership model since they all have a stake in the operation. In other words, each is involved in the success of the operation because it’s their farm too. As for growing the operation, Mainville acknowledges the challenges that stand in the way, namely the provincial land-use restrictions and the environmental awareness that goes with livestock farming. “It’s motivating to try to do more with what we have,” she says. “And it’s forced us to be creative.” CG

“We provide safe, quality food to the consumer. We can be honest and transparent because there’s nothing to hide.” Ravi Bathe, Agvocate Poultry and Berry Producer

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BUSINESS

Farm feedback On this savvy farm, feedback is mined for real value, producing a happier, more efficient workforce

n the farm, we’ve heard the jokes about feedback being a load of barley that gets rejected at the elevator, or maybe it’s how a cow chews her cud. In bizspeak, though, feedback gets taken a lot more seriously than that. As a human resources strategy, feedback is gaining global attention because of the power it has to generate insights that unleash innovation, solve problems and even empower employees. Now, it’s proving its value on the farm too. But be forewarned: this isn’t feedback the way that we used to think of it. No longer is feedback something that always flows from the top down, like those grumpy criticisms from the boss or those annual performance reviews. Instead, this is the era of 360-degree feedback. It’s a whole new world. The story starts here Four years ago at Lambton Shores, northwest of London, Adrian and Jodi Roelands started a plant propagation business with four acres of greenhouses and 30 to 50 seasonal staff. Their second hire was a human resources specialist, because the Roelands could see that in order to achieve their goals, they would need to leverage team leadership skills and create systems to manage people. Today the farm employs 150 employees (seasonal and full-time staff) and has tripled in size with customers throughout Eastern Canada and into the U.S. “For us, 12 acres is the sweet spot,” says Jodi. “We were trying to get there as fast as possible.” Richard Stup, a Pennsylvania-based human resources consultant, says as the numbers of non-family employees increases, so does the level of management and leadership that is required. In his experience, the tipping point is often when farms get 10 to 20 non-family employees. This is the zone where farmers really need to formalize their daily interactions with people and need to schedule communication, so they can engage consistently, as well as communicate and manage. “Leadership requirements change at different stages of business growth,” Stup says. 18

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Farm families have a history that keeps them motivated. They’ve also grown up understanding long hours and effort. But when the farm gets bigger than the family, they suddenly discover that motivation can be a real issue with non-family employees. They also see the payoff. “Highly motivated workers will give the extra effort needed to do a good job, not just what they must do to get by,” says Stup. From day one, motivating their employees and learning from them has been part of the Roelands’ business strategy, and this continues to be the driving force behind their success. “We really believe our staff knows what they are doing and that we need to harness that knowledge,” says Jodi. The Roelands have a strong core of about 100 local employees and sometimes have 40 or 50 contract workers they bring in from London to cover the busiest times. This winter they’re also hiring 40 foreign workers through the temporary foreign workers program (TFWP). The Roelands hope the TFWP program will help them to continue to expand because they’ve tapped out the local market for labour. They’ve also been automating; rapid increases in the minimum wage in Ontario are reinforcing the cost effectiveness of replacing lower skilled labour with machines, says Jodi. But to grow the farm, there’s no way around it. The Roelands need good people. Over their four years in business, the organization of their staff has evolved and become more formalized. Now they have up to six teams in charge of specific jobs, each with a leader. This gives their employees a little more focus, but because their business of producing seedlings for tomato, green pepper and cucumber growers has intensive seasons, these teams move around according to need. Nine managers take care of the dayto-day, and the team leaders report to them. The two co-owners split up the bigger picture jobs, with Adrian overseeing management, production and growing and Jodi looking after the marketing and financial sides of the business. Learning how to delegate and letting go of control

Photography: David Charlesworth

By Maggie Van Camp / Senior Business Editor

For Adrian and Jodi Roelands, the business challenge was clear. How could they grow their operation sustainably and profitably based on a reputation for top-quality product? In that search, employee feedback is now a key strategy

was difficult for Jodi, but she quickly learned that she couldn’t do it all, especially with five young children. “When I was trying to do everything myself, I was being a bottleneck, I was trying to do too much,” she says. “I found that by hiring the right person for the job, other people could do the job better than me.” Learn from Mistakes In retrospect one of the core leadership lessons the Roelands have learned is to really dig into mistakes, and to share and learn from them. “Coming to terms with your own mistakes, learning from them and not dwelling on them is key,” says Jodi. Looking outside the agricultural industry helps them get perspective on risk and their own mistakes, says Jodi. She loves reading business magazine articles about

successful companies and the mistakes that they’ve made. Jodi says Adrian is much better at taking criticism than she is but because they have a common goal, they tend to be focused on that rather than their personal egos. It helps that they work together as equals, building the business from nothing, but it takes good communication. The couple is in constant communication throughout the day, talking and texting reminders to discuss something or fix a problem later. “I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else but him,” Jodi says. Their attitude of getting better by learning from mistakes and by constantly looking for ways to improve then creates a model that gets taken up by their staff. With every Continued on page 20

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS Cutting to the right question Farm employers desiring a highperforming and committed workforce need to move beyond the minimum requirements, says Richard Stup. They need to create an atmosphere that meets people’s social needs. To bring home the point, Stup often asks farmers how their employees would answer the following five questions that relate to social needs. 1. Do people feel they are an important part of the farm’s success? 2. Do people interact in a friendly manner? 3. Is there a common area on the farm where people can socialize? 4. Are there opportunities for people to work together to get jobs done, or must they always work alone? 5. Do people feel they are part of a group that is working toward worthwhile and understandable goals? Then Stup asks farmers to write down ways they can help improve the responses. The goal is to create work environments where employees are motivated beyond paycheques.

order, the Roelands post a customer profile where the order is prepared with a photo of the buyer and a list of the specifics they look for in their plants. Generally, quality is tied to things like uniformity and size, and many of their customers have high standards, which the Roelands are glad of because they’ve branded themselves around quality. If there is a complaint or suggestion by email from a customer, they print out a copy and tack it on the bulletin board. “We are very open with any communications we get with customers,” says Jodi. “Communication is just so important.” And the Survey Says… Research shows business leaders who do not encourage suggestions for improvement demoralize everyone in the workplace, especially the high performers, i.e. the people they can least afford to lose. If employees’ ideas are heard and accepted, it can be fulfilling. But if their suggestions are rebuffed, the best and worst employees are all negatively affected. To help farmers adapt to this, Richard Stup has developed formal worksheets to generate feedback weekly from each employee, including three specific items — strength, growth, look-ahead notes. Continual progress is motivating. Silence is actually demotivating, he says. “Choosing to not give feedback is an

option,” Stup says, but then quickly adds, “it sends a message that the person’s performance on that task is unimportant.” For about six months the Roelands tried giving their employees confidential surveys to fill out every month. They asked them social questions like, were they happy on their teams, and was anyone negatively affecting the workplace? However, it was challenging to get employees to fill out the surveys, so instead this year the Roelands decided to just have a sit-down chat with each of their employees at the end of the busy season. Instead of a formal review process, Adrian met with each of them individually for about 15 minutes and asked them how things were going, and if they could see any way to improve on the system and changes that have been made so far. What they found was that their employees opened up when given an opportunity to talk, and the information was very valuable. “It also builds relationships to be able to talk one-on-one,” says Jodi. For example, from those interviews the Roelands learned that the piece rate tracking and bonus system they were using made the fastest workers strangely uncomfortable with the slower employees. Their bonus system made them negatively competitive with each other and was set up to favour the ones that stretched the truth and didn’t build team. “Some people are

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JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

just inherently faster and sometimes speed comes at the cost of quality, at least in our business,” says Jodi. Their bonus system was based on data from a computer program (called Hortimax) designed in Holland to track labour. Instead of using a time clock, employees go to one of the computer terminals throughout the greenhouses and log in with their employee code and the crops they’re working on. The program ties how much work is done with the hours, showing productivity of the individual employee and the team. Recently, the Roelands have taken their feedback learning a step further and have started surveying their customers after a delivery. By email they send them a link for Survey Monkey, asking them a few ques-

Touchpads let employees track their efficiency and effectiveness.

tions and for an overall score. That score is directly linked to a bonus system and every month that feedback is shared with the team supervisors and managers. Current team bonuses are 50 cents on quality (based on the customer survey results) and 50 cents on speed based on the Hortimax data, but employees don’t get the speed bonus without first having good customer scores. This bonus system matches up with their company goal of being a premium supplier. Bonuses used to be set on how much work was done in a certain time but because quality is so important to their business, linking the bonus to customer feedback has resulted in improvements without decreasing productivity. “There’s a lot less damage to the plants now,” says Jodi.

Culture of Communication Last year the Roelands wrote core value, mission and vision statements as part of their CTEAM training. Although they talked about quality at every staff meeting and said that they wanted to be a preferred seedling supplier, they had not written it down. Although it feels good to have it formally written, it turns out that this was only a step in the process. Jodi has found it’s more important to actively integrate that culture into their business rather than write it on a piece of paper and post it on the wall. “If you are not living it, it doesn’t matter,” she says. About the same time, they started using a computer program and app called Bamboo HR. Almost all employees have it on their phone so they can let everyone know if they are sick and unable to come in to work so accommodations can be made and all the managers, team supervisors and owners are in the loop as to who’s in or out for the day. Employees can also book vacation time on the app and it goes directly into the system so it can be accepted or denied, depending on the schedule. The program has all the employee onboarding paperwork, training and safety documents, and, emergency contact information is at everyone’s fingertips. Continued on page 22

Growing Soybean Culture

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BUSINESS

Adrian and Jodi find employees respond to extra communication; the results help them achieve market goals and growth.

On the app, new hires tell a little bit about themselves — like their birthdays, what they like to do when they aren’t working — and on their start day a welcoming email goes out with this information. Jodi has found this little bit of information makes new employees feel welcome because these tidbits are great conversation starters. A new app A cool tool that Richard Stup has worked with is an app called Deputy (www.deputy.com). It helps schedule employee time and attendance in a format that can be directly downloaded to payroll programs, tasking and communication. It’s also an easier way to give constructive feedback to employees, by tracking completed tasks or performance. Feedback apps like these are becoming more and more prevalent. But it comes down to asking for feedback and actively listening. “What’s the culture? Are employees engaged to communicate with their boss?” asks Stup. Stup hopes the feedback cultural shift he is teaching 22

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

farmers might be the key to stopping outside labour agitators in the U.S. Employee relationships on some American farms have become more of a pressure cooker with the changing immigration laws and threats of unionization. “Employee welfare and worker welfare are quickly changing,” says Stup. “I’m trying to help farmers get ahead of that with good policies and procedures.” Recently, company-imposed codes of conduct are forcing changes. Food processing companies are now wrestling with how to balance workers rights with the continual challenge of producing low-cost food. In October, the Vermont-based ice cream maker, Ben and Jerry’s signed an agreement called “Milk with Dignity” with a farmworkers’ group in the state. It establishes labour standards for the company’s suppliers, such as a set minimum wage, the right to one day off per week and at least eight consecutive hours of rest between shifts, and housing accommodation that includes a bed and access to electricity and clean running water. In return, Ben and Jerry’s will pay their accredited farms, a premium for the milk. CG

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long term thinking for today’s issues soil stewardship The CFFO is concerned about the long-term preservation and improvement of the quality of farmland soil. Good soil stewardship improves yields, prevents erosion and loss of nutrients into the environment, improves drainage and water-holding capacity, and sequesters carbon.

water stewardship Ontario agriculture’s future success in both productivity and stewardship will rely on policy in the province that encourages optimal use of water for food production. The CFFO’s Water Stewardship Project is looking for opportunities to increase production and resilience while protecting water quality and accessibility.

farmland preservation The CFFO is concerned about the long-term protection of our best farmland for farming. The CFFO believes that the land should be set to its best purpose. The best food growing land should be tasked with growing food.

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BUSINESS

Courting disaster When farm families end up in court, winners are few and very far between. Still, more and more families are ending up before a judge By Angela Lovell

he British press has given Welsh farmer Eirian Davies her own nickname, the “Cowshed Cinderella,” even though the court case that she brought against her parents, claiming they had reneged on a promise that she would inherit the family dairy farm, certainly didn’t have a fairy-tale ending. When the courts awarded a C$2.2 million settlement to Davies, the family was left broken, even though the settlement was later reduced to C$855,000. Davies was still evicted from her home on the farm, and the six-figure legal costs took a huge bite out of the farm and the family’s fortunes. Does it happen in Canada? Rarely do farm cases in Canada get such high-profile treatment in our national media, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of such cases out there. Feed the search terms “constructive trust” and “farm” into the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s online database and almost 2,000 cases pop up. And those are just the minority of cases that end up in court. Probably 80 to 90 per cent of such cases settle out of court, says Don Good, an Ontario lawyer who has dealt with plenty of farm litigation cases over a career spanning more than 30 years. Understandably, (if you have ever lived in a small, rural community), in most cases, when the parties settle, whether it’s in court or outside of court, they have a non-disclosure agreement in place so they don’t end up in the press or the public eye. “I was never encouraged by my clients to say, ‘Well you know, farmers could learn from this, put it in the paper,’ because they really didn’t want that publicity,” says Good. “Usually, when it gets to the point of litigation, the family is pretty badly damaged. They’re terrible cases to have to handle, and nobody wants this to become public, especially in a small community.” There are no winners except the lawyers when a dispute over the family farm leads to litigation. “When I took these cases on, because I’m a farm boy myself, I always tried to make sure the client understood I

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

was going to do the best I could for him or her as my client, but I would also try to do the least amount of damage to the family and the farm,” Good says. “If the client didn’t agree to that, often I didn’t take the case on. But there were times, when positions were so entrenched, that I thought this doesn’t make sense. There are no winners coming out of this, everybody’s going to lose.” What is “constructive trust?” Most of these farm legal cases involving a dispute over who is entitled to what are brought under the principle of constructive trust or unjust enrichment, which doesn’t just apply to farms, but is more common in a farm situation, especially when there are no wills, written business agreements or farm transition plans. Constructive trust refers to a situation where somebody has contributed to the value of property and has not been compensated for it. As an example, a son works on the farm for many years with little compensation expecting that he will inherit the farm upon his parents’ death. That doesn’t happen either because the parents change the will to make someone else the beneficiary, or there is nothing at all in writing to say this was their intention, so others make a claim on the property after the parents’ death. “In this instance, the son would sue for constructive trust because the work that he did was directly related to the value of the property involved,” says Good. In some cases a person may provide a service that provides a benefit for which they are not paid, such as caring for a sick parent or relative. The principle behind “unjust enrichment” is that people shouldn’t take advantage of other people’s work and effort and not pay for it. Constructive trust is also unjust enrichment, with the difference is that property or land is involved. Litigation is costly Many of the early farm family litigation cases involved common-law spouses, but one of the most common today is a child who works forever on the farm but then at the last minute, wills are changed or are found to be inadequate when other siblings come racing home to claim a share in the farm. There is always a financial burden to bringing litigation, which can put additional stress on individuals and the farm business. Cases that go to court can quickly amass legal fees in excess of $200,000 to each party. “When people settle out of court, at least the costs are usually blended across the parties,” says Good. “Courts pick winners and losers, so the loser really takes a hit.” Unfortunately, non-farming siblings often have an overly romanticized view of the farm that leads them to demand their fair share without stopping to think what “fair” really means in terms of the farming sibling who is taking all the risks on a daily basis. “Often what happens is the children who went out Continued on page 26

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BUSINESS

Quite often, farm families, from a legal point of view, are operating in circumstances which are more complicated than they realize.” — lawyer, Laura McDougald-Williams and made their fortune in life in the non-farm world still perceive of that farm as being idyllic and that their brother or sister was lucky to get the farm,” says Good. “They forget about BSE, and rain this year and drought the next, and the prices are bad, and all the things that farmers go through, the risks they take and the hazards they run up against. He got the farm in the first place, whereas we had to go work for a living. All they see is he or she is getting all that money.” There is also rarely any consideration for the fact that the value of land and other farm assets, while they undeniably have increased, and continue to increase dramatically, is tied up as the equity needed for the farm to obtain financing and continue to operate. Farmers know that it’s not just cash in the bank, but non-farm siblings often want to treat it that way. Transition starts today It’s unfortunate that more farm families don’t realize that transition starts with the living and encompasses what’s happening today. It’s key to avoiding conflicts that could harm the family farm, and the family itself down the road. “Quite often, farm families, from a legal point of view, are operating in circumstances which are more complicated than they realize,” says Laura McDougaldWilliams, who practices law in the small, rural community of Souris in western Manitoba. “In the first place, when there are siblings or parents and children farming together, they should have some sort of written document to clarify everyone’s intentions about the current 26

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

situation that they are in. As an example, it’s common for children to trade labour in exchange for using their parents’ machinery as a way to get them started. Those types of arrangements can cause conflict if there is a misunderstanding at the end of the year about how the expenses and profits are shared.” McDougald-Williams is also a farmer, and because she understands the risks of farming, she spends a lot of time trying to help her farm clients develop written agreements to preserve harmony in the farm operation over the long term. “It’s important that how land and farm assets are to be transferred is documented so that, in the event of a disability or a death, for example, it tells the whole story clearly for other family members, or a power of attorney or executor that has to step in,” she says. The first time someone comes into the lawyer’s office to talk about succession planning, they often think they just need a will that sets out how they want to distribute their personal and/or farm assets upon their death. But in almost all cases, the transition plan needs to be a lot clearer than a will that says simply “I divide my estate equally amongst all my three children.” That probably works if someone dies with a million dollars in the bank that the kids can split three ways. But when that one million dollars is tied up in farm land, machinery, buildings, homes and inventory, not to mention the addition of sweat equity in the case of farming children, it’s a lot more complex. “Particularly in families that have non-farming children, the succession plan should make specific provision for an equitable, not necessarily equal distribution of assets among all the children, that allows the younger generation to continue farming without having to sell a half or third of the farm to satisfy testamentary instructions,” says McDougald-Williams. Are you headed for court? With the value of land and farm assets escalating, are we going to see more of these kinds of cases, or is that increase in value making more farm families aware that they need some sort of written agreement? Good doesn’t think the message is getting through to the extent that it should. According to the 2016 Canadian Census of Agriculture, only 25 per cent of farms have written business plans and just eight per cent have a formal, written succession plan. Accounting firm BDO Canada says three out of four farms will change hands over the next 10 years, and with 48 per cent of farms reporting that they have no chosen successor, the perfect storm appears to be brewing for many more legal battles over valuable farm assets. “As long as that situation continues, I have no reason to believe that the number of cases will drop off,” says Good. The average age of Canadian farmers is 55, which means we can expect a lot of farm assets to transfer over the next couple of decades. That opens up the potential

for a huge amount of farm litigation if farmers don’t get the message that they need to plan for succession and get things written down. “A farmer will save a thousand dollars by not getting his wills or any agreements done and that could cost him or his estate $200,000 plus when it isn’t done right,” says Good. “Many just don’t see the value of that first thousand dollars and what it could save, not just in money but in family disputes. We’ve got to get farmers to believe that that initial investment is worth so much more to them, and certainly worth an awful lot to the next generation.” The value of mediation Things have to be pretty bad before farm families end up in court because in most provinces, the court process usually involves both a mediation and pre-trial step to find a way to settle the case. Farmers can also reduce the risk of court action by understanding the drivers that can make legal action more likely, and by trying to reduce the possibility that the farm will head in that direction. When it comes right down to it, legal niceties aren’t the only issues to be on the alert for. Both Good and McDougald-Williams encourage farm clients working on a transition plan to seek the advice of a good farm family coach early in the process, because it’s often the emotion and family dynamics that are the stumbling blocks to a good, workable plan. “I think the key is a family coach who helps the family organize a plan. If you go to the experts first, nine times out of 10 tax considerations drive the process, and that’s often a poor driver because it doesn’t take into account the mental element and the family dynamics,” says Good. “But a family coach can concentrate on those family dynamics, particularly if there are any conflicts.” It’s likely that families already know what those conflicts are or will be, long before they get into decisions about transitioning the farm, and in some cases, it’s actually a reason why they don’t want to do it, because they fear having to face up to what can be long-standing family issues. But a do-nothing strategy instead of trying to reconcile those issues and moving on to develop a plan that works for everyone is just setting up the surviving members of that family for tough times ahead. “Most often we hear the biggest barrier to farm transition planning is fear — fear of conflict, fear of life after transition for the current farm owners or managers, fear of ‘opening up a Pandora’s box,’ as we recently heard from one farmer,” says Heather Watson, executive director of Farm Management Canada. Transition can happen faster than expected Besides evolving roles and responsibilities, farms can face sudden, unexpected change such as a death or disability that accelerates or forces the transition process,

but which many transition plans don’t even consider. These events in themselves put tremendous stress on the family and the farm operation. Advanced planning can help prevent additional stress by taking care of key operational issues ahead of time. One of the common issues that farms face in these situations starts at the bank. If the farm account has only one partner’s name on it, and that person dies or is unable to sign, the bank will often freeze that bank account until new arrangements can be put in place. Meanwhile, the bills still have to be paid and some kind of cash flow maintained, which can be stressful and costly. “I always encourage farm clients to have two signing authorities on the farm account as well as that joint account and to also have their own account with their own name on it, because I have had situations where joint accounts got frozen until one partner’s name was formally removed and a new account opened,” says McDougaldWilliams. “It was useful for the surviving spouse to have an account in his or her own name for depositing life insurance cheques or whatever to keep the family afloat.” Another common challenge has to do with estate administration costs, such as probate tax, which can mount up. As an example, if a farmer passes away and has farmland worth $1 million with only the one name on the title, the spouse has to pay $7,000 probate tax to have Continued on page 28

I have no reason to believe that the number of cases will drop off.” — lawyer, Don Good COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

their name added to the title, and the lawyer fee would be $10,000 or $13,000 on a milliondollar-valued estate if they follow the government prescribed tariff. If both partners names are on the title, these costs are avoided, but there are sometimes good reasons why that doesn’t happen. “It’s often a question of balancing a variety of competing risks,” says McDougald-Williams. “A reason that people often don’t add their partners on the title is the fear of a family separation and the effect that would have on the farm. The next generation will drive change If you do choose to add a spouse to a title, that is deemed to be an irreversible gift of 50 per cent of that land, whereas if there was a divorce and the person was not on the title, they wouldn’t necessarily be entitled to half of the value.

Of course, there are spousal or cohabitation agreements which can be drawn up that ensure someone marrying into the family has no claim to the farm’s assets, but that can be a thorny issue in itself. The key point illustrated by such issues is that transition and estate planning is an ongoing process that changes as people go through different stages of their lives. “Every estate plan is unique and you really need to sit down and plan it all out, and take into consideration all these unique circumstances,” says McDougald-Williams. The next generation will be the drivers to get written succession plans in place, and many will learn from their own experiences that they need to begin the process early. “Young people are the key, because you should plan to transition the property when you’re 60 or 70 back when you’re in your 20s and 30s because there are tools you can use, like life insurance,” says Good.

“There can often be a huge capital gains issue, or farming siblings may have to pay out non-farming siblings. One of the ways that can be done, without having to sell off part of the farm itself, is for Mom and Dad take out life insurance at an early age, when it’s still affordable, to cover those future costs to the non-farming children.” If the aim is to keep the farm and family intact, it seems achieving open, honest communication is the first, vital step, so when it’s time to bring in the trusted professionals to figure out the legal and financial aspects, everyone is on the same page. “I can tell people what happens if they don’t do it right,” says Good. “I can tell them about the cases where families spent $200,000 on me when they could have spent $2,000 on getting it done right in the first place. I can relate some of the dark side of this whole process if people decide they want to be hard-nosed about it.” CG

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ife ground to a halt in much of western M a n i t o b a M a r. 6 - 7 , as heavy snow, winds and whiteout conditions closed highways, leaving many travellers stranded and some needing rescue. Brandon spent 31 hours with visibility below 400 metres. The same area saw up to 41 centimetres of snow, sustained winds of 71 kilometres an hour and gusts up to 87 kilometres an hour, matching wind speeds in Morden, Berens River and Gretna, but below the 105-kilometre-an-hour gusts logged in Churchill. Motorists found themselves suddenly seeking shelter as conditions deteriorated. David Matthews of the Municipality of Whitehead’s volun-

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xperts say the PEDv outbreak in Manitoba is a warning to livestock producers across the Prairies that biosecurity has to be a 24-7 priority every day of the year. since late April, the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus has been found on 10 farms in three areas in southeastern Manitoba — and two of those areas suffered outbreaks just last year. “We’ve heard of a lot of scary practices happening on our negative farms that are in diseased areas,” said Mark Fynn, manager of quality assurance and animal care programs for Manitoba Pork. so far, officials have found “some linkages” between the three areas where the disease has emerged, but are still working on tracing the spread of the disease, including looking at staff movement, transport, and contamination on load-out areas on each of the operations.

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emoving the deferred cash ticket system won’t just hit farmers at tax time — it could also affect the entire supply chain, interrupting the flow of grain to international markets. “If they take this deferred cash ticket system away, you’re going to have farmers refusing to move grain when we need it to move,” said stuart Person, director of primary producer agriculture at accounting and business advisory firm MNP. “You’re going to have railroads sitting idle. You’re going to have grain terminals sitting empty. All because selling at certain times might not work for farmers because of tax implications.” Right now, deferred cash tickets are used to help producers “smooth their income out,” said Person. “With any farm business — it doesn’t matter if it’s livestock or grain — the income fluctuations can be significant from year to year due to a number of factors,” he said. If, for instance, a farmer has a bumper crop one year and sells it that same year, he or she will have a significant spike in income — and “generally, the higher your income, the higher the rate of tax you pay.” But the deferred cash ticket system allows farmers to take a portion of the money and defer the rest until next year. But Ottawa is considering scrapping the cash ticket deferral system — a move that would seriously impact Prairie producers, say Alberta’s wheat, barley, pulse, and canola commissions as well as other farm groups. the commissions asked MNP to review the situation and its analysis supports their claim. the majority of farmers aren’t trying to avoid paying taxes, but just want to “smooth their income out and make sure they’re paying tax at a reasonable rate like everybody else,” said Person.

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The Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale (PRCWRT) has streamlined voting on new varieties seeking a recommendation for registration. The PRCWRT held its annual meeting in Winnipeg Mar. 2. Here ballots are being distributed to members of the PRCWRT’s cultivar voting panel. PHOTO: ALLAN DAWSON

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rdinarily voting over whether to recommend new wheat, rye or triticale varieties for registration can stretch on well into the afternoon. This year it was over before the morning coffee break at the annual meeting of the Prairie Recommending Committee for Wheat, Rye and Triticale (PRCWRT) in Winnipeg Mar. 2. Many participants said they thought it was a record for the group, and in no small way former federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz is the reason why. The process has been streamlined — one of several reforms Ritz asked the PRCWRT and 16 other recommending committees to do when he wrote them in 2013. “I am challenging you to think about the future of variety regis-

tration and how best to ensure that Canada has an approach going forward that encourages innovation in variety development and balances the interests of producers and the entire value chain,” Ritz wrote. Some saw the letter as the beginning of the end for recommending committees, which its critics alleged were bureaucratic and an impediment to getting new, higher-yielding varieties to farmers faster. This year there were just 18 candidate cultivars before the PRCWRT, and a dozen weren’t up for voting because they’d already been supported for registration by the agronomic, disease and end-use evaluation teams, which results in an automatic registration recommendation, just one of the streamlining measures introduced since Ritz threw down the gauntlet. Before they’d come back to the full committee for further discussion and voting.

This year only six varieties came before the cultivar voting panel (CVP), a subgroup of the PRCWRT, whose members represent the entire wheat value chain including farmers, breeders, agronomists, plant pathologists, exporters and end-users. Up to 23 of the PRCWRT’s members serve on the CVP. The CVP’s creation is another streamlining measure. It reduced the number of people voting, while still allowing all PRCWRT members to give expert insight. The CVP also addresses Ritz’s concern that the process reflect the industry and its needs. At the PRCWRT meeting in 2013 Fairfax, Alta., seed grower Henry Vos said farmers and endusers should decide what varieties to grow, not a committee. But this year Vos said creating the CVP and having wheat commission representatives on it, is an important change. He said in the past, farmers had little for-

mal involvement or voice on the committee. Today he represents the Alberta Wheat Commission’s 14,000 farmer members on the CVP. “I like the committee structure,” Vos said. “I like the input of all the individuals. On varieties where there are concerns we have the cultivar voting panel, which represents the whole value chain. That is the most important part.” Much of what Ritz sought has been accomplished, said Brian Beres, a former PRCWRT chair and member of the ad hoc committee working on reforming the PRCWRT, following this year’s meeting. He said the group worked very hard along with the PRCWRT’s outgoing chair Curtis Pozniak, who is a durum breeder at the University of Saskatchewan, to streamline the process. “We wanted to get ahead of See committee on page 7 »

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2018 Search for lower costs

Our panel helps chart the year ahead PG. 5 EARLY Weeds We knew theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re expensive, but new science shows they cost more than we ever imagined PG. 3 CORN Markets Philip Shaw tells us to prepare for a year with some serious surprises PG.18

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Those early weeds Forget the old arithmetic. Your losses from early weeds are probably much more costly than you’ve ever imagined

n a time of low commodity prices and a growing incentive to maximize profit on every acre, it’s hard enough to accept that some growers are giving up $14 per acre on corn. It’s unfathomable that they might be losing $84 per acre. Yet that’s the startling assessment of the impact of delayed herbicide application on the yield of Roundup Ready corn in a study conducted by Dr. Peter Sikkema. Older data on the impact of delayed herbicide application in corn indicated a loss of 0.5 bu./ac./day, but with higher corn yields in the past decade, Sikkema believes the loss is now closer to 1.0 bu./ac./day.

In more competitive environments, in fact, the yield loss can run as high as 3.5 bu./ac./day. In field-scale terms, based on a combination of an average weed pressure, 1,000 acres of corn and a price of $4 per bushel, a one-day delay in herbicide application would result in a yield loss of 0.5 bu./ac./day or $2 per acre for a total $2,000 on those 1,000 acres. A delay of seven days means a $14 per acre loss or $14,000 total loss. Under “competitive environments” with heavy weed pressure on that same 1,000 acres of corn at the same price, that one-day delay costs $12 per acre or $12,000 per 1,000 acres. In a worst-case

Canada fleabane continues to challenge farmers in Ontario, especially as the biotype that’s resistant to glyphosate continues to spread.

Corn Guide, January 2018

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor scenario where spray application is delayed for seven days, it becomes $84 per acre and $84,000 on 1,000 acres of corn. Sikkema has long been a proponent of timely herbicide applications, and he believes the positive message actually is getting out and getting acted on. He adds, though, there are a few nuances with the numbers. First, the trials were based on Roundup Ready corn and the use of glyphosate only. Second, there’s been a fairly wide adoption of two-pass weed control in corn lately, and this is reducing the risk. “Growers appreciate how sensitive corn is to early weed interference,” says Sikkema, a professor of weed science at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus. “There’s been a shift from total post-emergence programs in corn to twopass weed control where they’re putting down an effective pre-emergence herbicide followed by a post herbicide to clean up any weed escapes.” Sikkema stresses that this trend is being driven by profitability, and that growers appreciate how rapidly they’re losing yield during the “critical weed-free period,” which he adds is much shorter than what is cited in some peer-reviewed literature. As a result, growers are adjusting their weed management programs accordingly. It’s also a departure from using the post-emergence grass products that were part of the 1990s weed control movement. Sikkema recalls the days when growers would wait until weeds emerged, and the recommendation was to spray only the portions of the field that had weeds and use only those herbicides that were required. With that messaging and the introduction of Roundup Ready soybean in 1997 (and corn in 2001), there was a shift away from soil-applied, pre-emergence herbicides to total post programs. “I think the hidden yield loss — for Continued on page 4

that matter, the hidden dollar loss — across Ontario was enormous, yet it’s a totally undocumented yield and financial loss,” says Sikkema. “Let’s say there’s a field with 223 bu./ac. corn with a postonly program. If that had been a two-pass program, that same field might have yielded 235. That is undocumented yield and financial loss that has occurred in many fields across the province for years.” A third proviso worth noting is that past weed management practices can increase a grower’s flexibility when it comes to the herbicide use. There are some farms in southern Ontario, says Sikkema, where families in the past 50 years have had near-perfect weed control of their farms through the use of very effective integrated weed management programs. Those farms today tend to have very low weed pressure, and have a lot of flexibility in terms of when they put on their post-emergence herbicide. “In contrast to that, we have conducted research on numerous farms in southwestern Ontario during the past 25 years and the yield loss on some of those farms would be tremendous due to early weed pressure,” says Sikkema. He has seen yield loss as early as the one-leaf stage in corn versus some where there’s no yield loss if application is delayed until the eight-leaf stage. “It varies all over the board… it has to be balanced.” Diversity in the field In spite of the rise of the four glyphosateresistant weed species in Ontario — Canada fleabane, giant ragweed, common ragweed and waterhemp — growers do have the tools to manage those weeds in a corn-soybean-wheat rotation. “It increases the level of management on the part of those farmers who have those resistant biotypes, but with the herbicides that are currently available in Ontario, I think we can manage those weed biotypes,” says Sikkema. “We just have to start talking about diversity and not relying exclusively on herbicides for weed management.” That diversity comes in all farming practices, including more diverse crop rotations and using as many different herbicide modes of action as possible. It would mean including winter wheat in the rotation where it makes sense and using cover crops after wheat. In soybeans, it might translate to decreasing row widths from 30-inch down to 20- or 15-inch spacings or increasing the seeding rate. 4

One point of interest regarding the new technologies available to growers such as Roundup Ready Xtend and Enlist is that growers do not force the technologies where they don’t fit. At the same time, it’s important to make full use of them where they do work and work well. As an example, Roundup Ready Xtend soybeans have an excellent fit for managing glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane or glyphosate-resistant giant ragweed in Ontario. It’s biologically active on those two weed species. In contrast to that, Sikkema calls it forcing a square peg into a round hole for growers trying to make the Xtend technology work in terms of glyphosate-resistant waterhemp. That has more to do with the biology of the weed and its extended emergence, which begins in May and continues through October. As a result, dicamba in a preemerge application of XtendiMax or Engenia might provide 10 to 14 days of residual control of waterhemp before it loses efficacy. Dicamba is very effective as a postemergence treatment for the control of glyphosate-resistant waterhemp, but Sikkema cautions that sensitive crops in adjacent fields may have emerged at that time. This puts those at a much greater risk due to off-target movement. Late-season applications Another point from Sikkema pertains to late-season herbicide applications, where a grower might apply a pre-emergence herbicide in corn. Though the field has been perfectly clean up to the six-leaf stage (V4), the grower notices some newly emerged weeds. Will those weeds reduce yield? Would it be worth it to apply a post herbicide? The answers to those questions are “No” and “Probably not.” And Sikkema says this is part of a rather profound shift in the past 10 years. Sikkema cites a recent paper written by Dr. Jason Norswor thy of the University of Arkansas, who stated that growers need to approach 100 per cent weed control in all fields in all years, and as long as they’re farming, they need to reduce weed seed return to the soil, especially from glyphosate-resistant biotypes. “The thought is that if there’s no weed seed returned to the soil, we are going to deplete the soil-seed bank, and there are just fewer weeds that are exposed to herbicides,” he says. “As a result, there will be reduced selection intensity for herbicide-

resistant weeds in general, and glyphosate-resistant weeds in particular. I’m changing my thought process, and I think we have to look to almost perfect weed control for those weed species that have a greater propensity for selecting or evolving herbicide resistance.” The primary reason behind this is well known: There have been no new herbicide modes of action for 35 years in field crop production. There might be new modes being developed, but it’s not known whether they will arrive in time to address some of the current weed management challenges. Finally, herbicides should be viewed as an exhaustible resource. Sikkema says more must be done to protect this exhaustible resource so that future farmers will realize the same weed management benefits from these valuable weed management tools. CG

The key finding in Dr. Peter Sikkema’s research is that a one-day delay in herbicide application can cause yield loss of 0.5 bu./ac./day or $2 per acre.

Corn Guide, January 2018

Cornguide

Lower basis may be a short-term challenge but interest rates can’t rise out of sync with the global economy.

Ready for the NEW cost of production?

alculating your farm’s cost of production (CoP) has been a focus of discussion for more than 20 years. According to some in the agri-food industry, it’s been embraced by more growers in the past 10 years, particularly with cyclically low commodity prices, comparatively higher land costs, plus seed and technology costs and the need to invest in technologies like precision agricultural systems. Proponents of the “know your CoP” mantra insist that it’s every bit as important in farming as a yield monitor or calibrating machinery. Yet as the summer of 2017 turned to autumn, several new parameters were introduced into the CoP equation, to the extent that some in the industry wondered how they would affect farmers’ bottom lines. Higher interest rates, an expected drop in the commodity basis, and an increase in Ontario’s minimum wage will all have significant impacts and alter socalled conventional CoP calculations. Country Guide approached four industry stakeholders — some of whom also farm — and posed a variety of questions on how these factors will affect agriculture in the coming year. Each responded with their own insights on the changes producers might expect. Overall, the consensus is that growers are definitely more aware of their cost of production, either as a result of their own Corn Guide, January 2018

undertaking or with the help of a trusted adviser such as an agronomist, accountant or banker. There are those who still need to increase their awareness, or adjust it according to current and emerging influences, but overall, growers are asking more questions and they’ve come a long way in understanding CoP in the past 10 years. QUESTION: Which of the new parameters will have the greatest impact on short-term and longterm impact on growers? Wayne Black believes the change in basis will have more of an immediate impact than interest rate hikes. An independent certified crop adviser (CCA), Black reasons that if a farm operation is highly leveraged, a lot of the interest rates can be locked-in for longer terms. As it stands now, 6.0 per cent interest may look high, but he believes anything under 8.0 per cent is a bonus, and it’s unlikely they’ll go higher without falling out of sync with the global economy. “If it does, the basis will erode even more,” says Black. “At least with the basis, the main commodities can be protected by locking in the basis and/or the futures price at the same time you purchase your inputs. If the basis drops, it’s most likely the cost of the commodity input would drop in sync with the change in the dollar (all other factors aside).”

A bit more complex, but a lot more accurate By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor From a banking perspective however, the key will be the individual’s level of farm debt, according to Troy Packet, vicepresident of Agriculture Services with TD Canada Trust. “While the reducing basis may have a large impact on break-even or profitability, given increased levels of farm debt, interest rate hikes could have a major impact on CoP, as well,” says Packet. “Minimum wage increases will have a larger impact on labour-intensive sectors of agriculture, such as the greenhouse industry.” The rising minimum wage will also affect other sectors that rely more on labourers — livestock, poultry and the fruit and vegetable sectors. From the seed, chemical and traits side of the business, Maizex Seeds’ territory manager Adam Parker believes it’s the basis while Stephen Denys, director of business management, points to interest rates. Parker states that without the basis in the past two or three years, farmers would be looking at significantly lower profit margins in the cropping sector in Canada. “As much as basis can provide risk, there have definitely been marketing opportunities to capitalize on, due to basis,” says Parker. “A farmer who knows their CoP can make significant gains Continued on page 6

when forward contracting or taking advantage of rallies in the market.” Denys notes that interest rate hikes are far from the 20-plus per cent days of the 1980s, and like Black, believes that rates can’t go much higher without a significant impact on a lot of other people. “With high levels of consumer debt, an urban-focused government cannot allow interest rates to climb out of control,” says Denys. “If the dollar increases in value relative to the U.S. dollar, it’s a double whammy with a shrinking basis. If we look at the U.S. experience in this part of the commodity cycle — the net prices we would experience with a higher dollar — the impact has been a lowering in land prices and further consolidation. Farms leveraged on land purchases would see a significant impact on the balance sheet.” QUESTION: Will these factors affect other business decisions? This is where changes taking place may provide an unfortunate side effect. Black has seen more farmers recognizing the benefit of long-term investments in a balanced fertility program or cover crops where they’re needed, and keeping their weed control programs in check. “Cover crops, weed control and fertility programs pay dividends later,” he says, citing the need for replacement of nutrients in the face of higher crop yields. “Otherwise, crop health may be negatively impacted, and it could take years to rebuild that fertility.” To Packet, farmers generally recognize the importance of good agronomic management and are excellent stewards. While some have the ability to get more precise in their fertility programs and herbicide applications, most will likely continue with current farming practices and look for ways to maximize yield. “I would expect many to look for other ways to cut costs, such as delaying equipment replacement and lowering land rental costs,” he adds. “I see the use of precision ag increasing in farming as margins get tighter,” says Parker. “The more a farmer can accurately use inputs, whether it’s seed, chemical or feed, if there is an ROI, the farmer will use the technology. Digital platforms are also allowing for much easier access to evaluating performance.” 6

“Given increased levels of farm debt, interest rate hikes could have a major impact on CoP.” — Troy Packet, TD Canada Trust QUESTION: Recent drops in fertilizer prices could help offset some of the impacts of interest rates, basis and the minimum wage. But are those prices too hard to predict? Fertilizer prices present an interesting set of influences, notes Denys. Prices certainly have an impact on the grower as an input cost but the looming guidelines or regulations on phosphorus expected for Ontario and other provinces could affect crop management strategies in the long term. For the time being, fertilizer prices remain low. “Unless there are global shortages that spike the price higher, which we have seen in some years past, it tends to mirror demand in the U.S. in terms of corn acres,” says Denys. “If acres are down, this helps fertilizer prices.” Both Parker and Black believe that price histories make it too difficult to predict why prices drop or how much they may come down. And given the volatility and uncertainty of fertilizer prices, adds Packet, it’s unlikely they’ll play a major role in offsetting other costs or decisions. QUESTION: What, if any, influence will interest rates have on land purchases? The general consensus on this is that “farmers will continue to farm.” Interest rate hikes may slow the pace of transactions but the larger-scale farms that can cash-flow land purchases will continue to buy. And again, an urban-based government and high consumer debt loads will likely to keep rates where they are for now. For those who are leveraged a little more, there will be a tendency to rein in expanding land bases. The final word As for other factors that can influence CoP with these changing paradigms, the advice is simple, yet varied. For one, understand value, says Black, urging growers not to “cheap-out” to save on an expense.

“Also, know your adviser, and keep a trusted advisory team,” Black adds. “They may not be the least expensive, but they’ll provide the best advice for the long-term viability of your operation.” For Denys, it’s a set of concerns that affects the bottom line but more from outside of the industry, particularly on government regulation. “Out of one side of its mouth, the government talks about family farms and wanting small business, but regulatory creep is increasingly leading to consolidation and a reduction in the number of businesses,” says Denys. “This will be a difficult trend to reverse.” Denys also emphasizes the need for farmers to manage their cost structures, and he points to technology as a way of taking some of the risk out of production, as witnessed by the back-to-backto-back large corn crops in the U.S. What helps is a businesslike approach to commodity pricing and capturing the profitable prices when possible. On Packet’s supplementary list is a reiteration of “knowing your CoP,” especially in the face of significant change from the three new influences. “As margins tighten, investment decisions become more difficult and those who best understand their all-in CoP, which includes items such as labour and depreciation, will have an advantage in growing their operations.” Like Denys, Parker has a series of cost-related, production-influenced additions, including the need for socalled rainy-day funds. Environmental change is another looming concern, with farmers subject to drought, floods, frost, hail, storms and diseases having a greater effect, all of which add to the risk of production failures. “Barriers to entry are also concerning me for the future of agriculture,” says Parker. “The level of capital investment required to compete in today’s market is overwhelming for anybody trying to make a go of it on their own. With such tight margins, the return on investment is too long, and much too risky.” CG Corn Guide, January 2018

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Cornguide

The next tipping point

Some Illinois growers are already at the tipping point for resistant weeds. Are Canadian corn growers far behind? By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

Palmer amaranth has become a serious issue in the U.S. Midwest but hasn’t made a large-scale intrusion into Ontario… yet.

he march of glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane through Ontario has been nothing short of striking, going from Essex County in 2010 to the Ottawa Valley by 2015. And now other resistant weeds are also spreading. In the U.S., waterhemp and Palmer amaranth are the new “dynamic duo” with their own resistance movement. It’s to the point now where researchers and specialists in the U.S. are sounding the alarm on herbicide resistance, referring to it as a “tipping point” and forecasting the possibility that for some weeds, we may not have any adequate chemical options at all. In a bulletin circulated last October, University of Illinois ecologist Dr. Adam Davis noted that Palmer amaranth and waterhemp have gone beyond mere “hard-to-control” weeds. Palmer amaranth has seen a rapid migration from the Deep South and mid-south states into the U.S. Midwest similar to Canada fleabane’s through Ontario. And waterhemp in east central Illinois is now resistant to five of the six modes of action common to cornsoybean rotations. It begs the question: Are farmers in Canada looking at a similar kind of “tipping point?” Dr. François Tardif doesn’t believe we are, and he maintains that what we’re seeing in the U.S. is a small action and a strong reaction. He concedes there are concerns about resistance and the lack of new modes of action, but the bulk of weed control is still based on herbicides. “Even if you have four out of five resistant modes on your weeds, you can still spray the remaining mode of action,” says Tardif, an associate professor in the department of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph. “If your weeds Corn Guide, January 2018

show resistance to all of the available modes of action, then that would be the tipping point. We’ll reach that level when a significant proportion of fields will be uncontrollable and farmers will rely more on mechanical control, cover crops and weed-seed destruction as the main methods of management, not just as supplementation to herbicides.” Asked whether Canadian farmers are protected by the tendency towards longer rotations, Rob Miller believes growers are more aware of weed challenges in their crops. They also lean towards greater diversity with their rotations. “While we’ve been dealing with weed resistance for a number of years, the increase in glyphosate-, Group 2- and triazine-resistant weeds over the last few years has brought more attention to this challenging issue,” says Miller, technical development manager for BASF in Eastern Canada. “Growers are starting to look at ways to take an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to tackling some of these weed challenges.” It’s not that we’re ahead of the learning curve relative to the U.S., nor are we “protected,” notes Miller. We’re just at a different point using different strategies. He believes more growers here are incorporating biological and cultural methods with chemical means, creating greater diversity in the soil. They might lengthen their crop rotations, and by doing so change the weed spectrum and perhaps create a more competitive environment. “As we introduced more conservation tillage and more no till, we actually started to see some weed shifts to more perennials, and we started to see more weeds like dandelion start to show up,” says Miller. “That’s when growers had to change their mindset… that pest always seems to adapt.” Tough sell It’s by no means a new challenge, but with tighter margins and increasing costs, one of the larger hurdles across the agrifood sector is convincing growers to spend more money on their weed management strategies. Agronomic sales representative with Syngenta Canada Steve Johns says, human nature being what it is, growers are more likely to commit to dealing with the problem only after it arrives on their farm, and he points to the Corn Guide, January 2018

situation with Canada fleabane as a prime example. About 20 years ago, without new modes of action coming to the market, chemical companies determined the best course of action was to develop tolerance or resistance to existing chemistries and put them into crops. Roundup Ready and LibertyLink technologies were the first arrivals, and Xtend and Enlist are the latest to enter the marketplace. Next, growers might see a stacking of various chemical resistance factors, like glyphosate with glufosinate and mesotrione. “All of those things will be stop-gaps for a while, and overall, we can usually find a way to manage things,” says Johns. “It might take a totally new technology — like RNA interference (RNAi) and adding that to glyphosate, so waterhemp that was affecting its enzyme system can no longer do that, allowing the glyphosate to work.” The arrival of those stacked chemistries should have been the first step in the evolution of tolerances and resistances, according to Tardif. Models show that three-way mixes are better at preventing resistance than rotation or alternation of chemistries. “We should have had three-way stacked crops from day one — for example, glyphosate, glufosinate and auxinics together, or other combinations of traits,” says Tardif. “But historically and commercially, that was impossible. Once you spend millions of dollars on developing a new technology, you want to recoup your investment as quickly as possible.” Impractical pricing In the University of Illinois document, it suggested one way to reduce the reliance on glyphosate would be to ramp up its price, saying “herbicide susceptibility in weeds should have been viewed as a finite resource all along, like the global oil supply. As resources start to dwindle, prices should theoretically go up.” In the case of herbicides, prices in the past 30 years have decreased. Yet Tardif quickly dismisses the analogy citing the many subtle differences among herbicides. There are different formulations and ionic variations, but oil will always be oil. “With herbicides, glyphosate is not dicamba, is not sethoxydim and is not mesotrione,” Tardif says. “They differ in their efficacy, spectrum, residual and cost

Canada fleabane is the primary herbicide-resistant weed species in Eastern Canada, but others are becoming challenging, including giant ragweed. Photo courtesy of Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA

of manufacturing. A herbicide may be very good on the market — good weed control, good crop safety — but then may be too expensive to manufacture, and that may take it out of the market.” Another way of lengthening the life of a technology is to shift the mindset on the use of residuals. Both Johns and Miller believe this is happening. In a way, says Johns, the industry was fortunate that when Roundup Ready corn came to market, many growers continued to use residual products in addition to glyphosate on their crop to maximize yield and profits. “We really tried to get that message out to not let your crop see weeds, to use residual chemistry, and overall, a lot of farmers continued to use residual chemistry in Roundup Ready corn,” says Johns. Johns maintains that most growers understand the connection between the continued need for residual chemistries and any long-term use of stacked herbicides, such as glyphosate with dicamba or with 2,4-D. Changes in cultural practices are also on the list of action items from Miller’s perspective. Longer rotations provide different application timings for different crops. As well, renewed interest in cover crops may help in the resistance fight as well. The addition of cover crops — after wheat or soybeans and inter-seeded into corn — helps create competition in a beneficial way. Best of all, they’re an effective part of IPM strategies. “The use of chemistry is a vital tool in the tool box,” says Miller. “But it’s best used as part of an IPM strategy.” CG 9

Cornguide

The Prairies —

adoption set to speed up Projections of eight million acres may be optimistic, but breeders are making fast progress in adapting corn hybrids to Western Canada By Angela Lovell

wo years ago, Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer announced ambitious plans for expanding corn acreage in Western Canada to eight to 10 million acres within 10 years, and grain corn acres have indeed increased in traditional corn-growing areas like southern Manitoba, where growers seeded a record 410,000 acres in 2017, up more than 18 per cent from the year before. But acres haven’t increased significantly in other western provinces. A few factors are contributing to the underwhelming growth. Lower corn prices are dampening the enthusiasm among some prospective growers. And, also on the economic side, investments in equipment such as row planters and grain dryers look less enticing with longer paybacks in today’s markets. It would be a mistake, though, to think all those corn hopes have dried up. Plant breeders report they are making good progress in developing earliermaturing and higher-yielding hybrids suited to western Canadian growing areas. “We’re ahead of where we thought we would be from a yield standpoint and right on schedule from a maturity standpoint,” says Dan Wright, Canada corn and soybean portfolio lead for Monsanto Canada. “What’s exciting is when we first started breeding for this area, we were aiming for 70 days to maturity and 100 to 110 bushels per acre yield, and that’s not even on our charts now when we’re looking at advancement. We’re already at above 130 bushels per acre with that earlier maturity, and that’s great news for growers.” DuPont Pioneer released three new early hybrids in 2015 — a 2000-corn heat unit (CHU) hybrid, P7005AM and two 2050 CHU hybrids, P7202AM and P7211HR. “These products have established themselves in the Western Canada marketplace and our customers are happy with the performance that they’re

seeing,” says Steve King, evaluation zone lead for DuPont Pioneer. “These three hybrids have allowed us to grow more corn acres in the West.” First taste of success Climate change is also having an impact on many breeding programs. With climate scientists predicting warmer, drier growing seasons on the Prairies, another focus is developing high-yielding genetics that can manage drought stress. Both companies test all new hybrids for Western Canada under local conditions and have several products in development for release over the next few years that they believe will be viable for the region. “In our current pipeline we have a lot of material that’s earlier flowering, good test weight, and reaches a harvest moisture that would be less than 2000 heat units,” says King. “Those will continue to provide options for the short-season areas of Western Canada.” “We have increased our number of yield trial plots in Western Canada dramatically,” adds Wright. “Western Canad ian growers are aggressive, they like to try new things, and we really feel that it’s Monsanto’s role to trial and test under local conditions so that when growers have their first experience with a new crop like corn they’re going to be successful.” A lot to learn Although there are similarities between the northern U.S. and Canada, breeders have had much to learn as corn moves north, including how to deal with both new and familiar pests and diseases as well as different production systems such as no till. For example, developing hybrids with better resistance to “green snap” is a focus of breeding programs for northern areas. Green (or brittle) snap is the breakage of corn stalks by violent winds, which are more common on the Prairies than in traditional corn-growing areas in the eastern U.S. and Canada. Corn Guide, January 2018

Photo: DuPont Pioneer

Results of a Farming Smarter study in Alberta suggest that a narrower row spacing of 20 inches and a seeding rate of 30,000 seeds per acre give better emergence and significantly more yield than on a 30-inch row spacing at lower seeding rates.

Breeders have also discovered it doesn’t take long for traditional pests such as European corn borer to find new corngrowing areas. “As corn moves across Western Canada, we have found out that even in areas where corn has never been grown, corn borer finds corn,” says Wright. “So hybrids need the normal pest and disease package that’s built in, and again that local testing for other diseases that might be present is also important.” “There are a whole series of traits that we’re breeding for in our product development pipeline,” says King. “Maturity and yield are major ones, but also standability and diseases like Goss’s wilt, which is particularly important in Western Canada. We screen all our genetics for Goss’s wilt in a special disease nursery to ensure we’re not advancing material that’s too susceptible to the disease.” Corn Guide, January 2018

Fitting into no till Ken Coles of Farming Smarter has just completed a three-year, dryland grain corn agronomy study at four locations in Alberta: Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Bow Island and Vauxhall. One goal was to determine how grain corn can fit into a no-till system. All the locations had drought in two out of the three years, with an average of 60 per cent less than normal moisture and average temperatures 13 per cent above normal. Results suggest that a narrower row spacing of 20 inches and a seeding rate of 30,000 seeds per acre give better emergence and significantly more yield than a 30-inch row spacing at lower seeding rates. In a fertility study, overall across eight trials there was very little response to nitrogen at any of the rates applied, which were zero, 50, 100 and 150 lbs. of actual N

applied in various ways — granular sidebanded at seeding and as split applications. Background N levels were not high — averaging between 13 and 60 lbs. “The average yields for us from small plots were between 70 and 100 bushels per acre, so they’re not bumper crops, but when you consider that they’re dryland, and that you don’t necessarily need to put much nitrogen down, I think it pencils out,” says Coles. “I feel pretty confident under an average year, it is possible to hit 100 to 120 bushels, and looking at the current prices, even a 70- or 80-bushel corn crop pencils out compared to a 20-bushel wheat crop in southern Alberta.” A two-year crop sequencing study also gave interesting results, indicating that previous crops are more important for yield Continued on page 12

Hybrids plus agronomy The take-home message from the study, says Coles, is that dryland grain corn can work. He’s confident that with the lower heat unit varieties that are now available, corn can be added as a viable option in any production system in southern Alberta. That said, there is definitely a learning curve to corn in no-till systems. “We need to learn, as farmers and researchers, how to deal with planters because it’s a different cropping system,” says Coles. “It’s different than an air seeder, and some adaptation is needed to make those planters work well in a directseeding scenario. You can’t just take what you know about running an air seeder and apply that to a planter. They’re precision planters that require a little more detail and level of knowledge to use them properly. I think we can make it work in zero till but farmers will need to be careful about the precursor crops.” Monsanto has several research farms and technology development representatives across Western Canada. In areas where the company anticipates corn could be an option for growers, it has been working to understand the agronomics such as planting dates, fertilization and how corn fits into a no-till production system. “We have been doing a tremendous amount of work on the agronomic side, for example with things like strip till (where soil is blackened only in the seed row), which we believe is a good option for western Canadian no-till growers,” says Wright. “Our research is something we don’t talk about enough, so we are building our plan to make sure we’re co-operating with universities and sharing what we’re doing collectively, so the industry can learn together. If we’re all helping move the needle forward, that’s positive for growers.” 12

A Monsanto research plot in Saskatoon where the company says yields are zooming past their original goals.

“I feel pretty confident under an average year it is possible to hit 100 to 120 bushels, and looking at the current prices, even a 70- or 80-bushel corn crop pencils out.” — Ken Coles, Farming Smarter King says DuPont Pioneer is also working on the agronomy side, taking the global expertise and knowledge that it has with growing corn in many different environments and making sure it still applies or can be adapted to Western Canada. “We’re doing studies on plant populations and planting densities to see how Western Canada corn responds to increasing plant populations either for grain or silage use,” says King, who adds the company is also looking at corn development from planting to flowering under various Prairie conditions. “There’s a lot of historical information from the U.S. Midwest about the number of leaves that are needed to reach tassel stage, and how many heat units you need to get to certain tassel stage, so we did a study this past summer where we took these ultraearly genetics that are adapted and bred for Western Canada and tried to repeat some of that historical information and see if the same applies here.” King says the data is still being analyzed but the company is hoping to share the findings with growers, retailers and agronomists soon. Meanwhile, yield data from Pioneer plots across the West are available to growers. Corn yields averaged 161 bushels per acre in plots 2016, and although 2017 wasn’t as good due to hot, dry conditions in some areas, the average yield across those plots was still 130 bushels per acre. “Obviously not every field is going to achieve that amount of yield but we definitely feel comfortable that we’re achieving enough yield to make corn an economically viable crop in growers’ crop rotations,” says King.

What’s the potential? Global demand for corn grew by 1.8 billion bushels in 2016 and continues to grow annually, which could be a significant factor in grower decisions about whether to grow corn. But are the predictions of eight to 10 million acres of grain corn in Western Canada realistic? Wright isn’t sure of the exact number, but he’s confident there is going to be significantly more acres of corn on the Prairies in the future. “Growers will decide how it fits on their farms, but the work that we’re doing gives growers another option from a profitability standpoint,” he says. “We talk to a lot of growers who are searching out new crops to help them be more profitable on their existing land base versus growing the same crops and increasing their land base.” King believes the estimates may be a bit optimistic, but he does believe growth will continue at a steady pace. “Even if the number is half that amount, it’s still significant growth and a significant presence for corn in Western Canada, but it’s going to take a long time to get there, it’s not going to happen in a couple of years,” says King. “With any new crop there are always early adopters and if they have good experiences the news spreads and you reach a point where the market takes off. From a research perspective, we have a longterm commitment to the West. Breeding takes a long time, and we’re making very good progress.” CG Corn Guide, January 2018

Photo: Monsanto

than the tillage regime. In the second year of the trial, corn was planted on corn, soybean, wheat, pea, lentil, canola and mustard stubble using both tillage and no-till plots. Although overall emergence on any of the plots was more even with tillage, there was definitely better emergence in the no-till system on low-residue crops such as soybeans, peas and lentils. Taken overall, there weren’t significant yield differences except where corn followed a non-mycorrhizae crop such as mustard or canola.

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Cornguide

Here’s a new way to do sprayer cleanouts that saves time and is great for the environment By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

Continuous rinse C ertain jobs on the farm aren’t anybody’s favourites. Repairing a planter in the middle of a soy bean field in early June is right up there on that list, and so is picking stones on just about any day. And up there with them is cleaning out the sprayer, which is another of the chores about which no one ever said puts the joy in farming. The somewhat official line on clean outs is that they should be performed at the end of a day’s application, and defi

After four serial rinses, in spite of the rinsate looking clean and being odour free, soybeans still exhibited cupping.

nitely when changing from one treatment to another. But a conventional triple rinse procedure takes anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes (according to an informal survey of Ontario growers) and even under good conditions, there are often gallons of spray mix left in the lines, pump and tank sump. Left undiluted, the residues can dry on or soak into sprayer parts, and they have the potential to lift and cause crop injury during subsequent application, or to build up until the sprayer is thoroughly cleaned. Now there’s a system which can per form the task in roughly one-third of the time. At the 2017 edition of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, Dr. Jason Deveau and Mike Cowbrough, both specialists with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), hosted daily demonstrations of a new continuous-rinse system. The demonstrations included a short tour through plots exhibiting crop injury to small amounts of dicamba, just to show the damage these can cause. This continuous-rinse design was first constructed and pressed into service in Europe, where pressure has been increas ing in countries that take water from ground sources. Since 2006, farmers in France and Belgium have been legislated to perform tank cleanouts, not just at the end of the day, but BEFORE leaving a field. In fact, the regulations stipulate they can’t leave the field until their spray is down to one to two per cent of the origi nal tank concentration as sampled at the nozzle. The legislation came after testing revealed unacceptable levels of farm chemicals in drinking water samples in those two countries. Point source con tamination occurred from tank fills and cleanouts performed repeatedly in the same spots. The surface run-off leeched chemicals into the water supply. According to Deveau, other European countries are now discussing similar reg ulations. Corn Guide, January 2018

Pump more, or more pumps? The problem was forcing farmers to take 20 to 45 minutes to rinse the sprayer after every field. European engineers knew that the sprayer’s pump was employed for two different tasks, which could not occur simultaneously: spray from the boom or draw water from the clean water tank. This is why the triple-rinse method is a tedious back-and-forth dance of drawing clean water into the product tank, then circulating, then spraying out the rinsate. But beyond the time and manual effort required to change valves, the real problem is that there can be five to 15 gallons of spray mix left in the sprayer when “empty.” “If you introduce one-third of the clean water you’re carrying using the main pump through the rinse-down nozzle, it dilutes the remaining five to 15 gallons and you get slightly less dirty water,” says Deveau, the spray specialist with OMAFRA. “Then you circulate that through the system as best you can, climb back into the cab and spray it out the boom. But again, you’ve left five to 15 gallons of now more-dilute solution behind.” That step is repeated two more times with the remaining solution becoming more dilute each time. This reality of adding clean water to dirty is also why a single, high-volume flush is not as effective as multiple, lower-volume serial dilutions, but they take a great deal of time, dissuading some operators from the practice. What if it could be faster? To help, European engineers added a dedicated low-volume pump for the clean water, creating the continuousrinse system. “When the product tank is empty, the operator flips a switch in the cab to start the clean-water pump. It draws from the clean-water tank, rinsing the product tank via the wash-down nozzles from the tank,” says Deveau. “The main pump is free to continually spray while rinsing is happening. This means clean water displaces the dirty water rather than dilutes it. Best of all, you never leave the cab, so operator exposure is nil, and you’ve sprayed that rinsate out over the field where it can break down naturally rather than dumping it in a single location.” According to Deveau, continuous rinsing is not exactly a new concept. There are still farmers who remember their fathers Corn Guide, January 2018

A simplified layout depicts the addition of a dedicated low-volume pump for clean water, creating a continuous-rinse system.

Dr. Jason Deveau (standing at left) and Mike Cowbrough (right) host the continuous rinse demonstration at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in September 2017.

parking the sprayer, plumbing a water supply hose into the suction line while spraying out the rinsate. However, the sprayer is stationary and the rinsate accumulates in that single location. During formal testing in the late 1990s, results indicated that continuous cleaning was more efficient than triple rinsing. In Deveau’s and Cowbrough’s demonstrations, continuous rinsing is “as good as” the triple- or quadruplerinse procedures. Last year, OMAFRA worked with HJV Equipment to adapt the system to a Rogator, and then worked with Green Lea

Fertilizer and Application Equipment to instal a similar design on a Case IH Patriot 4440 for about $3,000 (not including labour). That may sound expensive, but in view of the time savings, the reduction in residue within the sprayer and the subsequent reduced potential for accidentally carrying over sprays into a sensitive crop the team says it pays for itself fairly quickly. Even without the return on investment, it’s worth considering just for the environmental stewardship benefits alone. Continued on page 16

Direct to the lines and boom There is another modification that Deveau and others are exploring, which would allow the operator to shunt clean water directly from the rinse tank to the lines and boom. Such a configuration already exists as an option on some sprayers, yet it can be added cost-efficiently to a continuous rinse system and initiated from the cab. “Consider a scenario where the operator is rained out, or perhaps has too much spray mix,” says Deveau. “Their intention is to return later to finish, but they don’t want product to sit in the lines and nozzles where residue can form. So they elect to rinse out the lines and boom using the rinse pump, bypassing the product tank and product pump. It’s a nifty little perk requiring only one more electric solenoid valve, a switch and an additional ‘T’ in the plumbing.” A couple of other clarifications are helpful. Although the plot demonstrations exhibited low-level crop injury in soybeans, this continuous rinse system is not exclusive to dicamba formulations. Any spray application will benefit from a system like this. Deveau emphasizes that the Outdoor Farm Show represented a very stringent metric to demonstrate that both rinsing protocols are equally effective, but that no rinsing method is as effective as a full sprayer decontamination. That process requires the use of a detergent and soaking time to address all dead-end plumbing issues. It’s also interesting to note that Monsanto and Syngenta are two companies that are interested in researching a continuous rinse system. In the field plots — seeing is believing During the Outdoor Farm Show demonstrations, Cowbrough shared his observations and insights from the plots that provided a visual indication of soybean sensitivity to dicamba. According to Cowbrough, he had two goals with the demonstration: to see if the continuous rinse process was equivalent to the triple-rinse process (in terms of spray cleanout), and to illustrate how sensitive soybeans are to dicamba. “We thought the best way to quantify the equivalence between continuous 16

Mike Cowbrough from OMAFRA discusses the dangers of small amounts of dicamba rinsate on soybeans at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in September 2017.

“The continuous rinse system cannot replace a thorough decontamination or clean-out procedure.” — Mike Cowbrough, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and triple rinse was to spray the rinsate collected over top of a sensitive crop, make visual injury ratings, and take yield,” says Cowbrough. “We have completed harvest at two sites and soybean yield was equivalent using both methods, once you got to the final rinses (third or fourth rinse compared to 75 and 100 per cent water run through using the continuous rinse system).” In testing for sensitivity in soybeans, Cowbrough refers to the body of research on the topic that shows the impact varies based on application timing, with exposure during the vegetative stage having less impact than at the reproductive stage. One research paper cited a 10 per cent yield loss in soybean at 0.16 per cent of the labelled rate of dicamba, so the cupping symptoms do show up at lower doses. “All of this is to say that if one does not do a thorough decontamination of a sprayer — clean the filters, end caps — with certain herbicides like dicamba, there will be issues,” says Cowbrough. “This was also meant to demonstrate that the continuous rinse system cannot replace a

thorough decontamination or cleanout procedure, since we collected enough dicamba in the filters after each method of rinsing.” It’s a quick, efficient method to routinely rinse out the majority of the sprayers so that the decontamination process is easier and more efficient. Again, Cowbrough’s and Deveau’s comments and the demonstrations they hosted were not an indication of dangers that are unique to dicamba. They apply to all chemistries, even though the crop damage in the soybeans from the dicamba rinsate was rather obvious. For more information, check spray-

ers101.com/installing-a-continuousrinse-system/ and sprayers101.com/ continuous-rinsing-should-be-consideredin-north-america/.

“Even for myself, I knew dicamba was potent,” says Cowbrough. “But it wasn’t until I started to go through the literature and see the cupping from what we collected from the sprayer… the rinsate coming out of the sprayer was looking clean and was odour free, yet we still saw cupping. And that was after four serial rinses. CG Corn Guide, January 2018

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Cornguide

For Canada’s corn growers, it is the best of times and the worst of times

Markets 2018 T

By Philip Shaw

here is no question that growing corn is a rewarding thing to do. Increases in productivity over the last several years have helped farmers boost yields across Canada as well as throughout the greater American Corn Belt. This has led to an abundance of corn on the ground almost everywhere, but with a corresponding drop in price. We can’t have everything. Now, as we look out into 2018, corn growers have a myriad of corn market factors to consider. Corn growers are caught in a vicious cycle. With burgeoning new technologies embedded in every corn seed, there is a constant yield improvement, which is increasingly turning into a default. Some might argue that corn yields are going up exponentially. Importantly, this phenomenon is true not only in Canada and the United States. It’s also taking place around the world, and it has led to a corn market of everincreasing supply that in turn drives down corn futures prices. Of course, we’ve seen vicious cycles in agriculture before, including the kind that leave us asking: What has to come first, the chicken or the egg? Does corn supply have to collapse, or can we hope the global demand will grow even faster? Regardless, as we move into 2018, we’re getting a fairly clear picture of what we will be facing. The challenge for corn farmers will be to find marketing opportunities despite this cycle. We need to ask ourselves a few questions. How much corn will be planted in the United States and in Canada, especially in Ontario and Quebec in 2018? Will there be a shift away from corn to soybeans? Will the corn futures price remain in a low range between $3.38 to $4? Will corn demand continue to grow within this cheaper price environment? Is there a black swan event looming on the horizon, which may send corn futures prices much higher? In the middle of winter, estimating and musing about the 2018 corn crop

remains only hypothetical. However, a look back at the 2017 growing season gives us some indication of where the market may be heading. During 2017, American farmers planted 90.4 million acres of corn, harvesting 83.1 million acres according to the November 2017 USDA report. At the start of the 2017 growing season there was much conjecture within the market that higher soybean futures prices might actually lead to the United States planting more soybeans acres than corn. However, this did not happen; soybean acres came in at 89.5 million acres planted. The pricing scenario going into winter of 2018 is similar. For example, November 2018 soybeans at the end of November 2017 were $10, while December 2018 corn futures were $3.83. The U.S. cash price using DTN’s national corn index on December 1 was approximately $3 per bushel, with many sub-$3 prices across much of the corn belt. Soybean cash prices were $9.19 per bushel. How these ratios will affect planting intentions in the spring of 2018 is anybody’s guess. However, like 2017, there is a signal to plant soybeans over corn. Whether it manifests itself in similar corn acres in 2018 will be a major factor in corn futures prices. USDA released some early projections in late November 2017. They predicted that 2018 corn would come in at 91 million acres with an average yield of 173.5 bu./ac. At current demand this would result in a 2.6-billion bushel ending stock, a huge number. At the same time they predicted that soybeans would tie corn for acres at 91 million, with an average yield of 48.4 bu./ac. and 376 million bushes in ending stocks. These are very big numbers versus 2017. The acreage numbers will be important in 2018 for shaping the future of corn supply. Increasingly, it’s obvious how resilient the newer corn hybrids are. Statistics Canada this year is predicting an Ontario corn yield of 169.5 bu./ac., which is close to a record. At the same Corn Guide, January 2018

time in the November USDA report the U.S. corn estimate of 175.4 bu./ac. was a record yield. This came about despite a growing season that was uneven in many parts of the U.S. Even though the USDA initial figure for 2018 is 173.5 bu./ac., with benign weather, that yield could be substantially higher, even more than 2017. This could catapult us into an ending corn stocks situation that would be worse than onerous, and that would have the effect of keeping corn futures prices in the low range. This range as we headed into winter was seeing March corn at $3.53 per bushel and December 2018 corn at $3.86 per bushel. This is happening in an everexpanding supply situation, but demand cannot be ignored. Simply put, corn demand is strong and has been at nearrecord levels over the last couple of years. In 2017-18 total corn usage in the U.S. is slated to come in at 14.435 billion bushels. With last year’s production from the November report of 14.578 billion bushels, there is not a lot of room for a production calamity. Needless to say, so far the corn supply is outstripping the record demand and it needs to stay that way for prices to stay low. The big demand components for U.S. corn are feed and residual at 5.575 billion bushels; food, seed and industrial at 6.935 billion bushels; and ethanol at 5.475 billion bushels. These components, along with exports, make up total demand. The ethanol component of this demand continues to grow slowly but it is unlikely to ever repeat the explosion of 2008. However, low corn prices will likely continue to stimulate feed and food demand. Corn exports from the U.S. largely depend on price as well as the value of the American dollar. Recent moves by the Trump administration against Mexico, the largest American export destination for corn, has led to a curtailment in shipments. There are more geopolitical issues beyond the tension between the U.S. and Mexico. For instance, China is moving toward a policy of a 10 per cent ethanol blend in gasoline nationwide by 2020. At the present time there are approximately 205 million cars in China, which consume 3.8 billion galCorn Guide, January 2018

To Canadian farmers hoping for $6 corn again, I say, “Keep hoping,” but at the same time, always remember that hope is not a marketing plan lons of gasoline. China has huge corn reserves and much of that would be consumed in expanding their ethanol mandate by 2020. An expanded Chinese ethanol corn policy may ultimately result in an increase in corn demand by 1.4 billion bushels. Of course, it should not be forgotten that this is unlikely to help the corn price in 2018, but it could ultimately be part of future demand helping out our corn price. In Ontario, corn production in 2017 was approximately 2.015 million acres. Historically, Ontario consumes more corn than we produce. In the past, this has meant that corn has been exported during harvest time (low basis) only to be imported back in during the later parts of spring and summer, when it creates a better basis. However, this is changing as corn productivity in Ontario continues to grow. It is conceivable that in the future, Ontario corn may remain on an export basis continually. (Conversely, if Ontario domestic demand for corn can be increased substantially, cash basis levels may be sustained at certain times a year, while the Eastern Ontario basis will likely continue to always be higher than cash basis levels in southwestern Ontario.)

The Canadian dollar will have an effect on this to some extent. However, its value does not affect corn basis levels in Ontario as much as it does Ontario soybeans and wheat, where the cash price optics in Canadian funds often look so different than cash prices in the U.S. Of course, what’s needed to lift corn futures prices is some type of production calamity somewhere in the world to bring corn supplies down. History tells us that this will happen someday. However, when corn futures prices reached $8.49 in 2012, we taught the rest of the world to grow corn. Overseas production in Brazil and the Black Sea region continue to be resilient. To Canadian corn farmers hoping for $6 corn again, I say, keep hoping. But at the same time, always remember that hope is not a marketing plan. There hasn’t been a kernel of 2018 corn planted yet. There surely will be marketing opportunities ahead as there are all kinds of potential risks in the coming year. The challenge will be to capitalize on some of these corn-marketing opportunities in a generally bearish environment. Let’s keep our eyes open. In 2018, there surely will be some surprises. CG 19

Here’s to farmers who don’t believe in man’s work.

At DuPont Pioneer, we believe in growth. Growth of crops, people and the communities we’re proud to be part of. Here’s to all the men and women who never stop growing.

#neverstopgrowing ,

® SM TM

PION2132 Country_Guide_East_EN_Woman_Final.indd 1

2016-12-12 1:51 PM

BUSINESS

The

Big 4

Where are all the mergers and acquisitions in the crop protection and seed sectors going to leave the individual farmer? By Maggie Van Camp / Senior Business Editor

orting out who owns who in today’s agricultural supply sector is a bit like looking at that rat’s nest of cords and surge protectors behind your desk. Everyone’s too afraid to touch it because it’s so complicated and intertwined. Besides, it seems to be working, so why bother? Except… Canadian farmers spend billions in seed, pesticides and fertilizers, and maybe we should know who we’re doing business with. Even more important, gaining an understanding of how these companies are evolving could prove an important step in developing our own strategies for the future. For example, should we be taking the bait on all these customer loyalty programs, or should we be making sure our purchases are more diversified? To help sort out the impact of recent mergers, Country Guide talked with three industry watchers with deep perspectives on the sector: Warren Libby, co-founder of Savvy Farmer and former president of Syngenta and Novartis, Craig Hunter of the Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association, and Rob Saik founder of Agri-Trend. They all see the same future with only four major

chemical and seed companies — Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Dow/DuPont — serving grain and oilseed producers in Canada. And although that sounds startlingly non-competitive, they see it as a continuation of the same forces that had already created another plateau in the past decade, when there was “The Big 6.” The rapid consolidation started in the 1990s when the disruptive technology of Monsanto’s glyphosateresistant seed technology forever changed the chemistry and seed business. Overall, the industry took a big hit, thanks to herbicide applications that went from costing farmers $20 to $30 per acre to $7 or $8. Suddenly, $8 became the threshold point for an acre of really good weed control in key crops. And not just in Canada. With three quarters of worldwide pesticide sales being herbicides, it was a huge blow to the agricultural chemical industry, says Libby. “The herbicide market basically collapsed.” Since then, new herbicide development has slowed, Continued on page 30

The Competition Bureau seems more attuned to the political environment than to farmers,” says OFVGA’s Craig Hunter. “It’s like the companies are all related to each other.”

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BUSINESS

In the wake of Roundup Ready, says former company exec Warren Libby, “the herbicide market basically collapsed.” Sales had been $20 to $30 per acre. Now they were just $8 with no new herbicide modes of action for the last 20 years. Research focus switched instead to insecticides and fungicides, and to finding new mixes of existing chemistry to combat the rise of herbicide-resistant weeds. And it wasn’t just glyphosate resistance, of course. There are still more weed species resistant to Group 2 chemistry (27 species) than to Roundup (<10 species). Overall, resistance is a market driver. Libby estimates that at least half of the farmers in Western Canada can no longer use just Group 2 chemistry or just glyphosate, which means that weed control has become a bigger job again, with effort required to understand weeds, scout them, create a field-byfield strategy and manage for resistance. It’s enough to change the equation. “With Roundup Ready technology, weed control used to be a no-brainer,” explains Libby. “Now it’s become more of a head scratcher.” And as the saying goes, “Somebody else’s problem is my opportunity.” 30

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

But unlike previous decades, this time the big chemical companies didn’t head at first to the lab to brew up new modes of action for herbicides. Instead, they turned to mergers and acquisitions, partly because of another crucial market development. Today, Libby points out, the money’s in the seed. Yet as the resistance has grown, so has the incentive to look for new chemicals. So, although the companies’ research focus over the past two decades has been on insecticides and fungicides, says Craig Hunter, “now they are back in the herbicide game.” Hunter even expects a comeback of pre-emergent sprays, although this time they won’t require a rain to activate them. However, he’s very concerned that mergers have resulted and will continue to result in reductions in the brain power working in company R&D departments, and a cut in their budgets as well. Mergers almost always lead to staff being cut as head offices scramble to prove to investors that their big-ticket purchases are paying off. Yet the result is a decrease in total innovation for farmers. “The Competition Bureau seems more attuned to the political environment than to protecting farmers’ interests,” says Hunter. “The only thing they’ve done is to say the companies can’t merge unless they sell off sections of the company or certain products so they don’t have too much control overall.” Over the past few decades, portions of companies and the people working in them have been traded around like hockey cards. Got it, got it, want it, need it, toss it. “It’s like the companies are all related to each other, now or in the past. It’s confusing enough, but add in the people who have moved from company to company, and it’s almost impossible to keep track,” Hunter says. “Plus there are no secrets anymore.” But not everyone sees this as a bad thing. “All large mergers and acquisitions must obtain prior approval by anti-trust authorities in major markets around the world to preserve competition and protect consumers,” says Pierre Petelle, president and CEO, CropLife Canada. And not all mergers result in layoffs. For example, as well as existing products, BASF has bought Bayer’s R&D pipeline, including more than 250 patent families. With this purchase, 1,800 Bayer employees from commercial R&D, breeding and production, (300 in Canada) will transfer to BASF. “It’ll be interesting to see how BASF will integrate the InVigor line,” says Rob Saik, founder and CEO of Agri-Trend, provider of agronomic advice and coaching for farmers. “The InVigor canola team built the market share from zero to over 60 per cent, and they are an important part of the intellectual property BASF is buying.” Many of the second- or third-tier-sized companies, like FMC and Nufarm, are more focused on selling generic off-patent chemistry and are not so heavily

steeped in research or so invested in seed traits. These smaller corporations might turn out to be real growth areas, as these companies pick up products split off by the larger companies during the transitions. For example, DuPont and Dow recently won EU approval to merge by pledging to sell key research and development activities and other assets. Last March, DuPont said it would sell part of its crop protection unit to FMC and buy nearly all of FMC’s health and nutrition business. But FMC had to sell its sulfonylurea and florasulam businesses in the European Economic Area. “Today there are well over 700 generic brands in Canada, 10 years ago there was less than a handful,” says Libby. “… and every two months there’s more. That should be good for farmers since most generics are priced lower than their branded cousins.” Seed Research When the dust settles from Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto, a two-tier agchemical and seed supplier system for the world will have emerged, with the top four giants (Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, DowDuPont), followed by all the rest. Having only four companies controlling most of the world’s main crops (corn, wheat, canola and soybeans) isn’t necessarily bad or good, it’s just a lot of power in a few places, says Libby. On the plus side, the new companies have huge resources, and since they have multiple patents and traits within one house, the potential for stacked traits is even stronger. As well, the collective resources wasted on duplication can be focused toward the end games, i.e. better products for farmers. “A competitive plant science industry ensures and maintains diverse product choice for farmers,” says Petelle of CropLife Canada. Research and development is leading the industry in new directions, including some amazing GMO traits. Yet this new world of technology is really restricted to the giants. Saik says it costs a company $138 million to create and then bring a GMO trait to market. The end game But where is all this consolidation leading? Saik believes we may soon start seeing more evidence of differentation among today’s four ag gains, until eventually each company becomes the leader of a specific sector, such as Syngenta potentially focusing their research on cereals. In other words, instead of investing equally in many pots, each will focus on areas where they can win. “Lead dogs will likely emerge in each sector,” says Saik. In a Canadian media session after BASF’s recent purchase of Bayer’s Liberty Link technology, Canadian business director Ron Kehler said the increased costs

of stricter environmental regulations, trait development and finding new modes of action are raising the bar as to who can be a significant player. Said Kehler: “The price to play, or to be in this business, continues to go up.” Market-changing technology Genetic modification is a complicated and costly process to produce new seed varieties, often based on stacked multiple-trait technologies that are owned and licensed by relatively few companies, says Libby. However, with new developments like CRISP, genetic engineering may become easier and cheaper, and we may see new, smaller technology companies emerge and focus exclusively on trait development. They will then sell those traits to the bigger seed companies to take to market, creating a cottage industry sort of like garage labs for agriculture, or like the app developers for smart phones. Beyond the investment in genetic engineering, research has already switched focus away from pesticide to biological and technical solutions, such as plant hormones that stimulate flowering and growth. “There will be a surge of biological solutions to hit the market soon,” says Saik. Recently some larger agricultural companies have also stepped up their investments in data solutions. For example, John Deere recently acquired Blue River, which created a new technology to see and identify weeds and spray or mechanically remove individual weed plants. Maybe these mergers and acquisitions will simply take the industry in new directions, offering new solutions and business models better suited to a rapidly consolidated farming sector. “Within five years, 0.25 per cent of the population will be growing 80 per cent of the food,” says Saik. “That’s less than a quarter million farmers in all of North America.” Saik says everybody in the industry knows or wants to know who the next decade’s farmers of consequence will be, and all the companies and ag retailers are trying to get this group of farmers on their customer lists. Marketing theory says it’s easier to sell more products to one customer than to get new customers. Yet many larger farmers have their own storage and fertilizer blending facilities rivaling smaller agriculture retailers. It’s a classic new business model trying to fit into old established systems. Farms are less homogeneous than they were 20 years ago and so are their needs. For example, some farms might want to pick up product in the middle of the night so they are ready to go at dawn instead of waiting in the line in the morning. Yet many retail locations will not allow this. “Today we have a bulk industry,” says Saik. “Often we aren’t dealing with jugs anymore. We’re delivering totes or whole trucks of chemicals, hundreds of tonnes of fertilizer, and shipping out thousands of tonnes of grain.” Continued on page 32

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

“How long will it be before ‘the Big Four’ start going direct to these farms?” asks Saik. To a degree, they already are. Many independent ag retailers have been purchased by larger corporations or co-operatives that can better handle risk. Sometimes they take on the culture of the corporation and lose the very essence and sometimes the people who made them successful. And yet it seems every year new ones are established, promising new technologies backed up with more passionate service. There might be an opportunity for independent retailers to be the rural-based purveyors of practical technology, says Saik. Are they not the ideal partners to roll up their sleeves and work out IT solutions directly on farms, or to bring new technology like 3-D printing to the countryside? Hunter is concerned there’s little stopping these few mega chemical and seed companies from limiting access to products through agricultural supply retailers. Access to choice of products is so important, and it can be limited with controlled volumes of certain products, he says. “I’m concerned that there might not be fair grower access to products due to coersion.” Although anyone can officially complain about

price setting, Hunter says it’s rare and often takes a collective industry effort to prove the case. “There really isn’t anything in place to stop price setting,” he says. Remember back when Syngenta predecessor CibaGeigy was taken to task by the Ontario Corn Producers, which feared the company would exploit the advantage they had gained when their only real rival in the corn-soybean market, Monsanto’s Lasso, was taken off the market in Canada by the federal government? Today there’s still a large price gap between what Canadian farmers get charged for some pesticides and what U.S. farmers pay for essentially the same product, says Hunter. And in the horticultural industry there are way fewer products registered here. Although there’s been some work on merging the two pesticide registration authorities of the two countries, EPA and PMRA, little has resulted from the efforts to commingle registration processes. Hunter, who has chaired the Ontario Pest Management Research and Services Committee for OMAFRA and served as chair of the Expert Committee for Pesticides and Pest Management at the federal level, is on the NAFTA growers’ network, and currently chairs the annual Minor Use Priority Setting Meeting for AAFC, says recently it seems to becoming a greater divide. CG

Some of the biggest companies selling pesticides in Canada: Bayer (after acquiring Monsanto) — This massive German company specializes in health care and agriculture. In fiscal 2016, the group employed around 115,200 people and had sales of EU46.8 billion. This fall, Bayer announced that it intends to divest some assets in the context of its planned acquisition of Monsanto. Syngenta — Now owned by China National Chemical Corporation (commonly known as Chem China) is a state-owned company. Dow-DuPont — Now merged into one huge U.S.-based company. They are still spinning off FMC businesses. BASF — Another large chemical company from Germany in 2016 posted sales of EU58 billion in a broad portfolio ranging from chemicals, plastics, performance products and crop protection products to oil and gas. FMC — This U.S.-based company is strictly about chemicals, health, agriculture and lithium. It seems to be resurging as products and divisions are spun off

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

during other mergers. For example, the company picked up some of DuPont’s herbicide businesses when it merged with Dow. Revenues totaled about US$3.3 billion in 2016. ADAMA — In September this Israeli-based company merged with Hubei Sanonda Co. and is partly owned by Chem China. With 6,600 employees and in over 100 countries and consolidated sales of US$3.35 billion, this newly merged company is the first crop protection multinational publicly traded in the Chinese stock market. NuFarm — Started in the 1950s, this Australian-based company first made and sold phenoxy herbicides, and more recently, has emerged as a producer of no-name or generic pesticides as back in the 1990s patents starting coming off pesticides. In late October, Nufarm agreed to buy a suite of crop protection products from Syngenta and ADAMA.

PG. 36 W atch out! Using a UAV drone on the farm is classed as commercial and requires an operator’s permit or a special exemption. PG. 38 T here’s a better way to tackle wild carrot in no till.

The ‘precise’ in precision agriculture Making cost-of-production decisions is possible using available software

n the world of precision agriculture, each new growing season seems to bring a fresh batch of brand new technologies, complete with upgrades to existing systems. No question, it can be a challenge just to keep up with the variety and capability of some of these innovations, let alone figuring out which might have the best fit for your farm. Last fall, a story in Country Guide explored a situation outlined in a web article that had been published in the U.S. earlier in the spring discussing the merits of a so-called break-even price calculator for corn. One key limitation was that the corn price (US$3.69 at the time) was never linked to yield. It could have been $3.69 at 150 bu./ac. or 250 bu./ac. It created an impression that the optimum yield would be the same, no matter how the cost of producing

Margins in corn production are tightening to the point where growers need to maximize every last acre to stay ahead.

By Ralph Pearce / CG Production Editor

those bushels compares to the dollars that growers can generate from their sale. Then Greg Stewart, agronomy lead with Maizex Seeds, went even further, wondering whether it might be possible to create a map of break-even pricing in fields, especially for those areas where it might cost double the field average to grow a bushel of crop, or even more. Stewart then questioned whether precision maps could be created that might send a clear message to the grower about their break-evens in different parts of the field. It’s certainly possible using any number of software packages to develop profitability-and-loss maps. An agronomist or certified crop adviser (CCA) can produce those maps easily enough using any variables a grower might want to input. But is there a case to be made for precise break-even maps? “I’m suggesting that in a variable-rate world, where you’re now going to adjust the seed cost input across the landscape and you’re going to adjust maybe nitrogen, maybe variable-rate potash, now the break-even maps become even more intriguing,” says Stewart. “If you have a sandy knoll, and we pull seed costs back and drop populations by 6,000 seeds per acre, and we think yield is marginal there, we pull back our nitrogen by 25 per cent. As well, since it’s always been a low-yielding area, the soil test on potash is quite high because it hasn’t had as much removal over the years.” The question is: How do you put the entire package together, and how do you know you’re doing it in the way that provides the best financial return? Then it gets even more complicated, because variables like lime also enter the equation, even though the lime should really be applied to the production cost of the several years worth of crops that it can be expected to help. Continued on page 34

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

crops Guide

After all of that precision ag, variable-rate work, what is our break-even cost on that knoll?” — Greg Stewart, Maizex Seeds “All I’m suggesting,” says Stewart, “is that if you have all of these variable factors — three or four inputs and your yield — it’d be nice to say, ‘Okay, after all of that precision ag variable-rate work, what is our break-even cost on that knoll?’ That’s a map that I’d find intriguing.” Maybe it already exists There are those who maintain that such mapping precision already exists, although not by that name. Karon Cowan asserts that profitability maps are every bit as useful — and are helping many farmers who are running SMS Advance or Trimble Ag Solutions (FarmWorks) or any of the software packages that provide such numbercrunching capabilities. “There are a lot of farms that are taking their various maps — and if you have a yield map, you can do this,” says Cowan, who operates AgTech GIS in Embro, Ont. “At the very least, show yourself your revenue map — even if you don’t have all of your costs mappable, then you certainly have your revenue mappable.” The programs that are available today will ask an operator (i.e. the farmer, agronomist or certified crop adviser) to use tools they likely already have. If they’re logging their yield data, they already have a revenue-map creation tool, says Cowan, and lots of growers are experimenting with these capabilities. Manipulating the maps to see where those less-productive areas in a field are located is a simple matter of inputting a yield map, then layering costs and creating an equation that provides the grower with a revenue map or profitability-and-loss (P&L) map. Corn planting map The mapping program allows the input of a hybrid or hybrids, and it’s possible, says Cowan, to input the planting patterns — i.e. if a grower planted a lower-cost hybrid around the headland of the field. From there, they can input the other hybrid or hybrids according to planting densities or row configurations. “As a precursor to any of this profit mapping, you have to be logging some data, period. And the most important is the yield map,” she says. “It is the leastexpensive precision ag technology to adopt, and I believe it gets you the most results for two reasons: this is your revenue map, but it also shows you the spatial distribution of where the profit or loss is coming from.” On the headlands, sometimes there can be some decent yields, but it’s not going to be land that’s under 34

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

higher management specifications, be they planting densities, elite hybrids or as comprehensive a fertility program in other parts of the field. In one of her customer’s field maps, it’s very easy to see where their production issues lie, and it has to do with soil types and topography. (He has two gravel ridges where after years of tillage, much of the soil from the knolls migrated into the hollows below.) That means his yields are better in those hollows. Still, this is a known production issue. He has yields below 125 bu./ac., and sometimes as low as 65 or 75 bu./ac., that show up as red areas on the maps. They’re always poor and that’s unlikely to change without some type of longer-term management strategy. But there are a lot of good areas of the field, where yields are well into the 200 bu./ac. realm, even though the overall field average ran 167 bu./ac. in 2015. “All a grower has to do, whether they have a mapping program that’s doing this or someone’s producing a paper map for them, is take these ranges, multiply by the price of corn and there’s the rough difference in revenue across a field,” says Cowan. That’s the lowest entry level, and growers can — and often do — create their own increments within their fields and on their maps. If they want, they can segregate their yields in 50-bushel segments. They can calculate costs according to the entire operation or on a field-by-field scale. And if they like to run some “what-if ” scenarios at different prices, they can input corn at a current level or factor in something higher or lower. The operator sets the equation using any or all variables available. “All I do is set up a basic equation that says, ‘yield times the price of corn equals revenue less cost of the product on any layers that have applied variable or flat-rate data,’” says Cowan. “It just requires some desire to do it, the software that can do it, and having your numbers in order.” If the grower has some added costs, all it takes is the input of a longer equation to make room for the added variables, which is a step that most software allows. The price of fertilizer, the cost of the land, the cost of crop protection — even the cost of hiring a custom applicator for the fertilizer — all can be input into the software. The key, says Cowan, is to set up the equation beforehand. That turns the basic revenue map into a profit map. And it will pinpoint the specific financials on a specific section of a field, including gravelly knolls or gullies. The SMS Advance system has a prompt feature, which asks the operator to input specific numbers such as different price points for the crop revenue to do “what-if ” scenarios. Or you can detail every product automatically for the season using the built-in financial tracking part of the program, which comes with a detailed profit-and-loss reporting and mapping feature. “You can get as detailed as you require, depending on what numbers you have available to you,” says Cowan. “It works like a calculator. The more detail you have, the clearer the picture will be.”

Precision Ag

Call it what it is Measuring things from a break-even perspective is something Tony Balkwill tries to avoid, because there are too many layers. He agrees with Cowan about the ease with which a grower can determine revenue or profitability maps using available technology. However, Balkwill believes farming according to “break-even” management doesn’t take into account some of the on-farm variations that might be overlooked, mostly because it’s a moving target. Differences in farming practices, soil types, rotations, fertility programs and seeding rates are too complex. But most of all, Balkwill points to marketing prowess as a factor that differs from farm-to-farm. Some growers are better at selling their crops or at purchasing inputs, or at handling risk, or

dealing with the discomfort level associated with that risk. The term Balkwill prefers to focus on is a “profitability by zone” map. “If a farmer is a poor manager, and has inflated land rent or equipment costs, and I’m farming with a horse and buggy, well then my cost of production is comparatively low,” notes Balkwill, who operates NithField Advanced Agronomy. “Cost of production shouldn’t even be in the discussion when you’re looking at the profitability of variable-rate applications by zone.” At the same time, it’s possible to extrapolate a map of zones to show a grower those areas where they might consider taking corn out of production, or at least planting an inexpensive cover. Balkwill cites one field where a grower had a

The precursor to any of this profit mapping means you have to be logging some data — period.” — Karon Cowan, AgTech GIS

The capability to map and manage areas of a field — from a profit-and-loss perspective — is now possible with available mapping software.

30-foot length along the outside of a field rimmed by a woodlot. All told, it turned out to be four or five acres that the grower was spending upwards of $2,000 to $3,000 on for seed and inputs, and likely lost much of that investment. “It became more cost-efficient to plant that four- or five-acre perimeter to a ryegrass variety instead of corn,” says Balkwill, echoing many of the same statements as Stewart. “If we’re variable-rate farming that field, and if we’ve designed that farm to have multiple zones and doing different practices based on that zone’s potential, then that zone has its own economic balance sheet. And that changes every year, just with the crop and the marketing and the input purchasing.” Right rung, right ladder Is it possible that growers are becoming too fixated on one form of precision ag versus another? Balkwill believes it is, and he suggests a hierarchy or “order of operations” should be brought into play. It’s not just a matter of climbing the rungs in the right order: for some, it’s finding the right ladder to begin with. “Think of the ladder and precision agronomy as all of the rungs, and if you start at the top, that’s a heck of a leap,” he explains. “It’s one after another, and you don’t just put more rungs in the ladder, either, where a farmer’s trading up for a variable-rate planter but doesn’t have site fertility figured out on his land. You need to build that foundation of ladder rungs before you get to where yours fits in.” With that hierarchy, a grower can expand on other facets to improve production by incremental steps. It’s easier to enhance 20 production factors by one per cent each than one aspect by 20 per cent. The former approach is far more attainable and there’s a synergy or cumulative effect of those one per cent increments added together. Unfortunately, adds Balkwill, it’s more difficult to bring poor or marginal zones up to medium or higher productivity levels. That’s counterintuitive because farmers usually think in terms of farming fence-row to fence-row, and taking land out of production to save money can be a hard sell. But try telling that to the numbers. In such a case, the math is bound to put up a pretty stiff argument. CG COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

crops Guide

Don’t just fly it out of the box New regulations make flying a drone more complicated for both recreational and commercial users By Angela Lovell

ou’ve invested thousands of dollars in that unmanned air vehicle (UAV), and you’re anxious to see it perform. You take it out of the box, plunk in the batteries, and off it goes… forever. It happens, says Matthew Johnson, owner of M3 Aerial Productions, a Winnipeg company that offers UAV training and aerial imagery and mapping services. He calls it “flyaway,” which is when a UAV, or drone, loses track of its home point, and the operator can no longer control it. “Most people who have flyaways have them because they don’t understand how to use their drone properly, they’ve not read the manual and followed the guidelines about safe operation,” Johnson says. Not only is it money down the drain, it’s also a potential safety hazard. Transport Canada recently introduced new regulations around both recreational and commercial use of UAVs. Anyone flying drones recreationally must follow new safety rules that include not flying at night, in clouds, or higher than 90 metres above ground, and maintaining a distance of 75 metres from buildings, vehicles, vessels, animals, and people. You also can’t fly within nine kilometres of “aerodromes,” which include small local airstrips. Most commercial operators will need to obtain a Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC), which is also required for all UAVs over 35 kilograms in weight, whether they are being flown recreationally or commercially. For UAVs under 35 kilograms, there are two exemptions for which commercial operators can apply to conduct lower-risk UAV operation in remote areas without an SFOC. To qualify, operators must demonstrate to Transport Canada that they understand and can meet the updated, weight-based safety criteria.

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Farmers need an SFOC “There are a lot of requirements in order to meet the stipulations of the exemption, and if you can’t then you have to get an SFOC,” says Johnson. “Where farmers are concerned, if they’re using a drone on their operation, even just for themselves to take pictures of their crops, that’s still a commercial endeavour and so they’re not subject to the recreational legislation, they’re subject to the commercial, which requires that they have training from a certified training school, and obtain an SFOC.” Johnson started offering UAV operators courses in November 2016 and had already trained 42 people by the end of March. Most are from the agricultural industry such as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada employees, researchers, students, agronomists and some farmers. Lesson one is knowing your drone and its limitations. “For example, people don’t realize that when they are operating their drone in the winter, depending on which drone it is, some of them are not meant to be flown in less than 0 C and others in less than -10 C,” Johnson says. A good place to start is to always read the instruction manual, a step people often skip, sometimes to their regret. “A friend of mine was given a Phantom 3 Professional drone for Christmas and he took it into his back yard, and it was -30 C outside, and put the battery in, turned it on, and it flew away and he lost it. He flew it for one-and-a-half seconds,” says Johnson. “When I’ve talked to all these people who have had flyaways, the one thing that I’ve noticed that’s very consistent is that they haven’t been calibrating their drones. They’ve done it maybe once or twice but you need to do it every time you fly.” Structures and metal buildings can affect the signal to UAVs, as can different locations, Johnson says. “Different areas of the Earth have different magnetic fields that can cause the drone’s guidance chips to

drones

become affected, so you need to recalibrate your drone every time you move to a different location too.” The course also covers operational factors, including how environmental conditions such as heat, cold, dust, wind and precipitation can affect the drone. “If it’s too hot, the batteries can overheat and you end up getting other problems that are associated with that. If it’s too cold, the chemical reactions inside the batteries prevent them from functioning reliably, so you can have unpredictable battery power,” says Johnson. Complicated application Johnson also helps simplify the process of applying for an SFOC. “When I filled out my SFOC application for the first time it took me over 40 hours.” Participants in the initial operator’s course do not actually fly UAVs because they need to complete the training before they are able to do that, but they can take a followup, hands-on UAV training course that gets them outside and flying, and also runs through how to collect and process the data they collect. “It’s mostly consulting agronomists and researchers that are investing in the higher-end UAV technology,” Johnson says. “But farmers are able to do it on their own if they really want to. It’s not all that complicated to apply on their farm. At a base level, they can use it without advanced sensors just to get an aerial perspective of their field, and that changes their whole understanding of how the field is growing.” High-end UAVs, such as those used by researchers and consultants, can cost up to $30,000, but Johnson says farmers don’t need to invest that much to get a lot more data. For around $2,000 to $3,000 they can purchase a good-quality UAV such as the Phantom 3 or Phantom 4 Professional multi-rotor UAV manufactured by DJI and add additional sensors that give more detail for a total of $7,000 to $8,000. New sensor A new sensor, made by Minneapolis-based Sentera, is making it easier for farmers to collect and analyze their own imagery and mapping data. “In my opinion, the Sentera sensor is one of best available for farmers at this point right now. It’s small enough that it can fit on the DJI Phantom series drones, which are the most common drone in the world,” says Johnson. “The Sentera sensor allows farmers to fly their drone normally as they would to collect any kind of video or photo imagery they want, but it also allows them to collect near-infrared, NDVI (normalized difference vegetative index) imagery at the same time.” Sentera includes software called Ag Vault that provides the NDVI data to the farmer immediately at the field. “You land the drone, plug it into a laptop and it does a basic processing of the data, so you can have

Matthew Johnson, founder of M3 Aerial Productions, poses with his fixed-wing drone, one of several his company uses to provide drone services to farmers since the agricultural branch of his company launched last year.

Stitched drone photos show aerial view of crops or use infrared lenses to track healthy growth and low growth areas in a field. Photos courtesy: Matthew Johnson

it right away,” says Johnson. “That’s one of the major benefits of this sensor. In the past the process was a lot more complicated and took several hours to fly the fields, upload everything back at the office, process and distribute the data. This way, anyone can have the data at field-side.” Johnson says that although UAV technology is constantly evolving, this year’s equipment won’t be obsolete by next year, so it’s a sound investment. “There will likely be other equipment come along that is better but the equipment from this year is still going to be providing that excellent quality of data that’s available now for the next five to eight years, depending on how much use the drone sees.” CG COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

Crops GUIDE #pesTpatrol

#PEST PATROL with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA Control wild carrot in no till

I am a long-time no tiller. I have a problem with increasing populations of wild carrot, mostly in my (conventional) soybean fields. This year in Roundup Ready corn, I have applied up to three litres of Transorb 540 and still have green carrot at harvesttime. What is the solution? Do I need to do more tillage? If so, what kind of tillage will take out wild carrot? I do not want to plow. Will pre-harvest herbicide applications in wheat control it?

Figure 1. A September germinated seedling with its three main divided segments.

The best approach for the long-term management of wild carrot is to focus on removing seedling plants after they emerge in the fall or in the spring (Figure 1), and to eliminate any first-year rosette plants (Figure 2) before they overwinter and set seed. Less soil disturbance will favour wild carrot and lead to control strategies that are more reliant on herbicides. A vertical tillage tool can do a good job of removing seedling plants while leaving enough crop residues on the soil surface to stay true to your soil conservation goals. However, killing rosette plants and their anchoring tap root requires a moldboard plow. For herbicide selection, while wild carrot rosettes are more tolerant to glyphosate, increasing rates to 1.34 l/ac. of glyphosate 540 g/l (e.g. Roundup Transorb) has generally worked, with fall applications being more effective than spring. Therefore applications made after wheat harvest are more successful than pre-harvest applications since you can use rates higher than the 0.67 l/ac. rate of glyphosate 540 g/l allowed prior to cereal harvest. You can also tank mix other herbicides so that you are not relying exclusively on glyphosate. Unfortunately, when it comes to herbicide selection for in-crop applications, there are only two active ingredients that provide more than 80 per cent control of emerged wild carrot, and they both have the same chemical mode of action (Group 2). Peak (prosulfuron) is your best option in corn while Classic (chlorimuron-ethyl) is your best option in soybean and the tank mix of Peak + Pardner in winter wheat. Since wild carrot control with herbicides is reliant on only two modes of action, incorporating tillage as a means to control wild carrot would be advised. This will reduce the risk of selecting populations of wild carrot that are resistant to either glyphosate (Group 9) or one of the Group 2 herbicides discussed above. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d start with the use of a conservation tillage implement to control young seedlings and monitor how effective that is over a period of two to three seasons. If the results are poor, you would have to consider the use of a moldboard plow. You could start small by just plowing the headlands (which typically have the highest amount of wild carrot) and then proceed accordingly. CG

Figure 2. A plant in the rosette stage in the fall having germinated in the spring.

Figure 3. An unsprayed area of a corn field with heavy wild carrot pressure.

H ave a question you want answered?

#PestPatrol on twitter.com @cowbrough or email Mike at mike.cowbrough@ontario.ca. Figure 4. Wild carrot control eight weeks after a post-emergence application of Peak.

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

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Crops GUIDE weather

Frequent snow/rain cold

Ontario

NEAR NORMAL

NEAR- TO BELOW-NORMAL TEMPERATURES NEAR- TO ABOVE-NOR MAL SNOWFALL

MILD AVERAGE SNOW/RAIN

NEAR-NORMAL TEMPERATURES AND SNOWFALL

sn Col sp ow d el y ls

Changeable snowy

Cold snowy periods

National January 21 to February 24, 2018

• J an. 21-27: Generally fair but snow falls on a couple of days with heavier squalls at times near larger lakes. Cold air dominates with a few higher wind chills. • Jan. 28-Feb. 3: Mainly fair with seasonable temperatures. Two or three chilly, windy days bring snow to southern and central regions. Bitterly cold with flurries in the north. • Feb. 4-10: Blustery winds create variable temperatures ranging from mild to cold. Often fair but expect snow on a couple of occasions, heavier near the lakes. • Feb. 11-17: Unsettled on and off as bright, mild days exchange with heavier snow. Risk of rain in southern regions. Windy at times. Cold with some snow in the north. • Feb. 18-24: Fluctuating temperatures and milder days bring some thawing to the south. Fair apart from occasional snow or rain. Snowy and milder in the north.

Quebec

• Jan. 21-27: Generally cold temperatures prevail with higher wind chills. Slight moderation in the south brings snow on a couple of days, heavier near open waters. • Jan. 28-Feb. 3: Often bright and seasonable, but a disturbance brings snow, chance of rain to the south on two or three days. Windy. Variable in the north with some snow. • Feb. 4-10: Fluctuating temperatures bring mild to cold weather and heavier snow to the south

MILDER THAN NORMAL

Mil snowd rain /

COOLER THAN NORMAL

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

and to central areas. Risk of rain. Windy at times. Cold, often snowy in the north. • Feb. 11-17: Unsettled on a few days with snow or rain in southern and central regions. Seasonable to milder. Heavier snow and moderating temperatures in the north. • F eb. 18-24: Pleasant overall with milder temperatures and thawing in the south and central although a disturbance threatens with heavy snow or rain. Windy, snowy in the north.

Atlantic provinces

• J an. 21-27: Variable temperatures with a few higher wind chills. Often fair but snow falls on two or three days, heavy in places. Risk of rain in southern coastal areas. Windy. • Jan. 28-Feb. 3: Temperatures fluctuate from mild to seasonable. Blustery at times. Expect snow on several days, heavier on windward coasts. Chance of rain in the south. • Feb. 4-10: Bright, fair days alternate with snow, chance heavy in some areas, mixed with rain along coasts. Seasonable temperatures with some thawing in the south. • F eb. 11-17: Look for unsettled weather and changeable temperatures with gusty winds. Heavier snow on several days, mixed with rain in southern regions. • Feb. 18-24: Milder with thawing in many areas this week. Periodic heavy snow changes to rain in the south. Heavy precipitation likely in places. Often windy.

highlights January 21 to February 24, 2018 Although cold arctic air is expected to dominate western and much of central Canada in this period, a few racing weather disturbances will alleviate the frigid winter temperatures from time to time. Some of these disturbances will be associated with heavy snow and high winds, leading to regional blizzard-like conditions. As a result, parts of British Columbia eastward through the Prairies to southwest Ontario could receive heavierthan-usual snowfall amounts. Farther east in Atlantic Canada, a southerly upper circulation will send milder-than-usual temperatures and near-normal precipitation. Sandwiched between these two extremes, eastern Ontario and Quebec should see oscillating temperatures and near-normal precipitation amounts.

Prepared by meteorologist Larry Romaniuk of Weatherite Services. Forecasts should be 80 per cent accurate for your area; expect variations by a day or two due to changeable speed of weather systems.

The Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA) Inc. is a national, non-profit professional umbrella organization dedicated to assisting farm families and businesses by increasing the skills of farm advisors and consultants.

www.cafanet.ca

What does it cost to produce that crop? Shannon Lueke, Pag, Farm management conSuLtant, mnP LLP

he 2017 crop is off and in some regions, it was an unexpected bumper crop. These producers are wondering if they have used up the last of the excess moisture they have been plagued with since 2010. Some are consciously evaluating their profits for 2017 and determining the proper spots to put those profits, knowing that they may not experience a year like this for a while. In other regions, the dry conditions hurt the crop and those producers are evaluating their costs to determine the ways they can mitigate their risk and minimize potential losses. Our team at MNP works through annual management plans with many of our farm customers. Those producers had a written plan in the spring to produce an average crop with market conditions known at that time. We know that conditions change, hence why we spend time discussing their risk on that projected bottom line. A plan that is 10-20% above break-even is safe and can handle some downturn. But a plan that is barely break-even may need some further evaluation. Hence the written plan is so important. Farmers need to understand their potential for gross revenue and align the costs accordingly to target 1020% profit margin. The best time to perform

the evaluation is before you go to the field. Cost of production is the basis for determining level of profitability, viability of the farming operation and the potential for growth. Overall, costs have increased by 40% or more in the past decade, so if you are still using the same cost from 5 years ago, you might be considerably off, thereby leaving you with an ill-conceived perception of profitability. Most are likely figuring their costs on a cash basis, not on an accrual basis, as other businesses would. They may be missing some costs by calculating on a cash basis. Here is the proper method to determining cost of production: 1. What are the production costs? These are the seed, fertilizer, chemical and production insurance expenses associated with the 2017 crop. Regardless of when it is paid for, these costs are simply the sum of the costs of the products applied to the ground for that year. 2. What are the labour, power and machinery costs? Get the equipment, maintain it, fuel it and put people in it to manage the operations. Equipment replacement costs are calculated very differently among farmers and these equipment costs can cause some heated discussions and differences in opinion. To keep this message short, it’s depreciation, not the payments that determine

equipment costs. A farm has a line of equipment and the depreciation (not CCA) of the equipment is the cost of keeping that equipment at the same level it was last year. 3. What are the land, building and finance costs? Get the land base, keep up with infrastructure and finance the business. You rent land, own land and likely utilize financing. These are the dollars the landlords and the creditors get. Do you have more on your bottom line than what you are paying them? Every farm should be able to line up these three categories of costs effectively in their business so there is the potential for 10-20% profit margin. If not, then knowing which cost centre is out of line enables management to hone in on the problem area, work through a solution and then get that potential profit margin back in line. No one will argue that costs have increased substantially in the past decade. But there are farms that know their gross revenue potential and manage cost structure to allow for financing of competing land purchases and rentals. How does your farm compete? First you must measure. Then almost anything becomes manageable. Shannon Lueke, PAg., is a Farm Management Consultant with MNP’s Agriculture Services group in the North Saskatchewan Region.

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BUSINESS

Glyphosate: the real science Will new studies that confirm the safety of glyphosate actually stop politicians from banning an essential herbicide? By Gerald Pilger

he study published in the November 9, 2017 Journal of the National Cancer Institute is crystal clear. Called “Glyphosate Use and Cancer Incidence in the Agricultural Health Study”, it says: “In conclusion, we found no evidence of an association between glyphosate use and risk of any solid tumours or lymphoid malignancies, including NHL (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) and its subtypes.” One of the study’s authors, Dr. Laura Beane Freeman, senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland, was even clearer: “The study did not find correlation between use of glyphosate and cancer.” However, Beane Freeman notes “the study did support an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia amongst the highest exposed group; but no other study has looked at this and this requires confirmation.” Beane Freeman noted this study came to the same conclusion as was reached in 2005 when the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) first evaluated the glyphosate cancer risk. She noted the current study is basically an update of that 2005 study and is a re-evaluation of the same study participants based on updated health and cancer reporting roughly a decade later. According to Beane Freeman, the AHS is among the largest and longest-running studies of the health of farmers in the world. More than 89,000 people have participated in the AHS. Between 1993 and 1997, 52,394 licensed private pesticide applicators, most of them farmers, and 32,345 of their spouses registered with the AHS. At registration as well as in interviews, they provided the AHS with detailed information on their farming practices, lifestyle and health. They also completed a dietary questionnaire and provided a DNA sample. All participants lived in either Iowa or North Caro-

Glyphosate squeaked through its EU re-approval, and France is promising to ban the herbicide within three years, which only encourages activists here 42

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

lina. These two states were selected for the study because each has a large number of farmers and a large rural presence. The two states have different kinds of farm operations, however, and this ensured the study results reflected a wide range of crops and farm types. As well, both states also already had cancer registries in 1993 which allowed researchers to track the incidence of cancer in the study participants. From the initial interview plus a questionnaire five years after registation and another followup in 2011, researchers were able to estimate lifetime usage of glyphosate and 49 other pesticides. Researchers were also able to identify a control group of farmers for comparison, based on the 17.2 per cent of participants in the study who had never used glyphosate. With this information, researchers used statistical analysis to compare the incidence of each type of cancer based on whether the participant had used or did not use glyphosate. The results are publicly available on the web at https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article/ doi/10.1093/jnci/djx233/4590280. Beane Freeman points out this study is unique and important because not only is the risk assessment based on actual cases of cancer in humans, it is also a longterm study of the cancer risk. She notes cancer may not appear until years after exposure to a carcinogen, and she hopes the study continues for the next 20 or 30 years, tracking the incidence of cancer and other health risks not only in the original AHS participants, but also in the offspring of the participants. What this means for Glyphosate There is no question it is good news that the AHS study has found no correlation between glyphosate and cancer after 20 years of monitoring the health of a large number of farmers. It is likely many farmers who have seen the study results will assume this will mitigate the arguments that glyphosate is unsafe and should be banned. Unfortunately, this assumption may be premature. The International Agency for Research on Cancer 2015 report that classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” still carries a lot of weight, and it is important to recognize that IARC had considered the 2005 AHS study that found no relationship between glyphosate

and cancer before releasing its 2A classification of the herbicide. Nor should farmers put too much hope in the November 27, 2017 decision by the European Commission to renew the licence of glyphosate in Europe for five years. Initially, the commission had been seeking a 10-year renewal but scaled back licensing terms after the European Parliament in October called for banning glyphosate by 2022. It seems there can be no question that some lawmakers were influenced by a petition signed by 1.3 million people calling for an outright ban of glyphosate. After two years of acrimonious debate, only 18 of the 28 EU countries represented on the commission voted to renew the licence for glyphosate. (Nine countries opposed renewal of the licence and one country abstained from the vote). In fact, though, the decision was closer than the vote seems to show because EU rules say at least 16 states representing at least 65 per cent of the EU population had to approve. In the end, the 18 states that voted yes represent only 65.7 per cent of the population. And, in spite of the approval, some EU countries such as France are still intending to ban use of glyphosate within their borders. After the vote, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that glyphosate would be banned in his country as soon as an alternative was found, and at latest, after three years. The San Francisco trial Even so, the biggest risk to glyphosate may be a court case in California. As I reported in the March 1, 2017 issue of Country Guide, personal injury lawsuits have been filed both in state and in U.S. district courts by persons claiming that exposure to glyphosate has caused their (or a family member’s) cancer. The most prominent case is being heard in San Francisco District Court where now more than 300 lawsuits have been combined in a single multi-district litigation, with the first trial scheduled to begin in the County of San Francisco Superior Court on June 18, 2018. Another hurdle to glyphosate acceptance was the July 7, 2017 addition of glyphosate to California’s list of carcinogens by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Besides just increasing public perception that glyphosate is unsafe, the listing calls for warnings to be placed on the glyphosate label.

MEANWhile in Canada… In 2015, Canada’s PMRA re-evaluated glyphosate and in “Decision RVD2017-01 Glyphosate” determined: • G lyphosate is not genotoxic and is unlikely to pose a human cancer risk. • Dietary (food and drinking water) exposure associated with the use of glyphosate is not expected to pose a risk of concern to human health. • Occupational and residential risks associated with the use of glyphosate are not of concern, provided that updated label instructions are followed. • The environmental assessment concluded that spray buffer zones are necessary to mitigate potential risks to non-target species (for example, vegetation near treated areas, aquatic invertebrates and fish) from spray drift. • When used according to revised label directions, glyphosate products are not expected to pose risks of concern to the environment. • All registered glyphosate uses have value for weed control in agriculture and nonagricultural land management. Yet Health Canada has ordered the updating of glyphosate labels by 2019 with additional requirements to further protect human health and the environment Finally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is still working on the review of glyphosate it started back in 2009. It hopes to issue a draft document in early 2018 for public comment on glyphosate. Far from resolving the question of the safety of the most used herbicide in the world, the Agricultural Health Study will only add to the debate. It is a debate that every farmer needs to be aware of and informed about. While it may have lessened the impact of the IARC report to some degree, it has prompted those opposed to glyphosate to widen their attack of the herbicide on new fronts such as the development of weed resistance to glyphosate. It really is up to farmers to inform consumers and the general public about the AHS study and the importance of glyphosate to agriculture and food production. Farmers have to explain what we do and why we do it. Consumers who are interested in health, the environment and food safety must hear that these are our concerns too. We are on their side. CG

More on agricultural health Consider checking out the Agricultural Health Website this winter at aghealth.nih.gov/. The Agricultural Health Survey does much more than just track cancer risk posed by pesticides. Researchers use data from the survey to monitor the health risks from factors ranging from the use of smokeless tobacco to the correlation of health to body mass index. The AHS has provided the data needed for the research that has led to the publication of more than 200 scientific papers; all of which are available for public viewing through the AHS website. AHS provides a quarterly newsletter to participants of the study informing them of findings. AHS also provides valuable education through news releases as well as on their website for farmers to consider in protecting their health. As an example, here is a listing of recent observations made by AHS researchers as presented on the AHS website: • Farmers have lower rates of many diseases compared to the rest of the population, perhaps because they are less likely to smoke and are more physically active. • Farmers have a higher risk for developing some cancers, including prostate cancer. • Gloves matter. Use of chemically resistant gloves can reduce pesticide exposure by 50 to 80 per cent. • Rotenone and paraquat are linked to increased use of developing Parkinson’s disease. • Allergic asthma in men and women may be associated with use of some organophosphate insecticides. • Accidental high pesticide exposure events may affect health later in life. • Diabetes and thyroid disease risk may increase for users of some organochlorine chemicals.

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

It’s a new market Get ready for some repair bills, says Case IH vice-president Jim Walker, who predicts farmers are going to have to change how quickly they cycle new machinery through their operations By Scott Garvey / CG Machinery Editor

hen Case IH invited farm writers to Ames, Iowa to see their new line of equipment for 2018, the company’s vice-president Jim Walker was also there. At an evening dinner on the last day of the event, he presented his thoughts on the state of the ag equipment industry, and hinted at his strategy for keeping the company on track for growth in Canada and the U.S. With the red brand using its new, permanent facility on the grounds of the U.S. Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, as the location for this year’s product reveal to the media, Walker had some thoughts on the value of farm equipment shows. Despite the current trend among buyers to rely on the internet for virtual looks at equipment, he confirms Case IH will maintain its presence at shows all across North America. “People talk back and forth about the value of farm equipment shows,” he told the group. “But I think [their continued popularity] shows that producers, no matter how they evolve, still want to kick tires, to go see equipment. I think the farm show itself, what’s done at those shows, the producers that attend, and what their expectations are, are always evolving.”

“Customers aren’t used to putting that many hours on those machines,” says Jim Walker, vice-president of Case IH. “They’re not used to repair bills.” Photo: Scott Garvey

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

What the company puts on display at the shows, however, and how it does it, will be under pressure to evolve to remain relevant. Attempting to meet those changing expectations is part of the reason the company has invested in permanent facilities at one of the U.S.’s most popular outdoor shows. And, he explained, there are plans afoot to make further investments in show facilities at other locations. Part of the reason for wanting to maintain a strong presence at those events may also be down to preserving the heritage of the brand in the minds of the public, who often hold strong brand loyalties. Walker notes he keeps an eye on what producers, owners and enthusiasts have to say about his company and machinery. “This is the celebration of the 175th anniversary of our company,” he said. “People have an affinity for what Case IH really means, whether you pick up the IH heritage, the Case heritage or other things, we’re proud of it.” Preserving heritage is important to the company, which has even kept the original J.I. Case office building in Racine, Wisconsin, as part of its headquarters. Inside that building, founder J.I. Case’s office is preserved in its original condition, and staff will gladly show it to anyone who makes the effort to stop by. “Across the road we have a state-of-the-art campus,” Walker said. “But we refuse to give up that heritage building or change it for any other end use than what it was originally designed for, as an office building.” In the same place on the Iowa show grounds where the company showed its new permanent facility this year, Case IH had something significant to show last year as well. That was the fully autonomous Magnum tractor. Executives clearly defined it as an early concept machine, but they promised to introduce one to the market in roughly three years. So where are engineers with that project? “It was a way to show all the different forward-looking technologies we’re working on,” said Walker. “It’s just finishing up its world tour of introduction, making its last stop in Australia. Then we’ll start evolving that into more of a concept, [determining] what the value-adds of forward-thinking technology are. “We’re running and still committed to an autonomous vehicle, obviously. We have vehicles running out in California. You get into some of those vegetable opera-

tions, tomatoes, carrots… It’s perfect for that type of vehicle, at least the early adoption of it. That’s what we talked about a year ago, and that’s what it’s doing at this point.” But although widely available marketready autonomous tractors wearing Case IH colours are still some distance off, Walker has found that producers are eager consumers of any new technology that can improve their bottom lines or solve their problems, especially in Canada. “Into the 2017 calendar year, I think it’s pretty interesting to look at what has happened and what we think will happen for the year,” he said. “First and foremost, we have a tale of two cities, if you will. In the Canadian marketplace, I call it the S&P of agriculture. It never really deteriorates too much, but it never really just explodes. Yet with the weakening of the U.S. dollar and the advantageous Canadian dollar in the first six months of the year, the markets boomed in Canada, especially Western Canada. “Good market prices and good sales of commodities (in Canada). What happens with that is an acceleration of technology needs. We see a completely different customer desire and drive in the Canadian marketplace than we do in the U.S. right now, especially in technology. We’re getting tremendous demand for innovations right now, far different than in the U.S.” In the U.S. there is still a need for dealers to work through the lingering effects of a period of hyper sales activity that began there — and here — in 2008, leaving many American retailers still trying to sell their

way out of a surplus of some types of used equipment. “The real driver of deterred investment in new equipment has been the enormous amount of equipment that was sold in 2012, 2013. That generated an enormous used equipment glut that is taking us quite a while to rid ourselves of and enable dealers to even want to take trades,” Walker said. Meanwhile, however, the glut of combines and four-wheel drive tractors, which are common on western Canadian operations has eased, according to Walker. That’s another factor helping drive both new and used machine sales on this side of the border. But producers’ expectations on how often they cycle their fleets are lengthening — as Walker believes they need to. “In combines and four-wheel drives, those used markets look very, very strong, both in pricing and low inventory levels. From the producer end of it, they’re not going to get the good price trade they used to back in 2012, 2013. They’re coming to the realization they’re going to have to keep it a little bit longer and expense it over a longer period of time. So they’re raising the amount they’ll pay for the product.” That is helping keep those used equipment prices at competitive levels that leave dealers some margin for profit. “Both Deere and Case IH got into an aggressive mode on 8Rs and Magnum tractors in 2012, 2013, 2014. Now we’re re-marketing those products and steering a lot of buyers to those used machines rather than buying new.”

Walker expects the surplus supply of those tractors will soon ease as well. But it, too, has caused producers to accept new realities. “Although it’s a young fleet, those customers aren’t used to putting that many hours on those machines. They’re not used to repair bills. They’re not used to having delayed technology. So there’s a real pent-up demand out there. There’s a decent appetite by the dealers to take trades. So there is an upside coming. We can at least say we’ve hit bottom. I’m comfortable with that.” Walker thinks the fact CNH Industrial (Case IH’s parent company) kept its R&D investment up during the downturn will serve the brand well in coming years, with new technologies already in the pipeline to capitalize on future market demand. And he notes that while many in agriculture have been around long enough to see significant sales downturns in the farm machinery business before, many younger people in the industry are seeing it for the first time. And, fortunately for them, the company has weathered this economic storm with very little damage. “For the newer people in our business, whether they’re employees in our own company, dealers or producers, this [downturn] is something many of them are experiencing for the first time,” he said. “The last real downturn was in the early ’80s. I think we’ve come through this really well. The brand itself is right-sized and smart-sized and has done well financially. We’re ready to move forward and take advantage of all the opportunities that come our way.” CG

Trait Stewardship Responsibilities Notice to Farmers Monsanto Company is a member of Excellence Through Stewardship® (ETS). Monsanto products are commercialized in accordance with ETS Product Launch Stewardship Guidance, and in compliance with Monsanto’s Policy for Commercialization of Biotechnology-Derived Plant Products in Commodity Crops. These products have been approved for import into key export markets with functioning regulatory systems. Any crop or material produced from these products can only be exported to, or used, processed or sold in countries where all necessary regulatory approvals have been granted. It is a violation of national and international law to move material containing biotech traits across boundaries into nations where import is not permitted. Growers should talk to their grain handler or product purchaser to confirm their buying position for these products. Excellence Through Stewardship® is a registered trademark of Excellence Through Stewardship. ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Roundup Ready 2 Xtend® soybeans contain genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate and dicamba. Agricultural herbicides containing glyphosate will kill crops that are not tolerant to glyphosate, and those containing dicamba will kill crops that are not tolerant to dicamba. Contact your Monsanto dealer or call the Monsanto technical support line at 1-800-667-4944 for recommended Roundup Ready® Xtend Crop System weed control programs. Roundup Ready® technology contains genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate, an active ingredient in Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides. Agricultural herbicides containing glyphosate will kill crops that are not tolerant to glyphosate. Acceleron® seed applied solutions for corn (fungicides only) is a combination of three separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, prothioconazole and fluoxystrobin. Acceleron® seed applied solutions for corn (fungicides and insecticide) is a combination of four separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, prothioconazole, fluoxystrobin, and clothianidin. Acceleron® seed applied solutions for corn plus Poncho®/VOTiVO™ (fungicides, insecticide and nematicide) is a combination of five separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, prothioconazole, fluoxystrobin, clothianidin and Bacillus firmus strain I-1582. Acceleron® Seed Applied Solutions for corn plus DuPont™ Lumivia® Seed Treatment (fungicides plus an insecticide) is a combination of four separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, prothioconazole, fluoxastrobin and chlorantraniliprole. Acceleron® seed applied solutions for soybeans (fungicides and insecticide) is a combination of four separate individually registered products, which together contain the active ingredients fluxapyroxad, pyraclostrobin, metalaxyl and imidacloprid. Acceleron® seed applied solutions for soybeans (fungicides only) is a combination of three separate individually registered products, which together contain the active ingredients fluxapyroxad, pyraclostrobin and metalaxyl. Visivio™ contains the active ingredients difenoconazole, metalaxyl (M and S isomers), fludioxonil, thiamethoxam, sedaxane and sulfoxaflor. Acceleron®, Cell-Tech®, DEKALB and Design®, DEKALB®, Genuity®, JumpStart®, Monsanto BioAg and Design®, Optimize®, QuickRoots®, Real Farm Rewards™, RIB Complete®, Roundup Ready 2 Xtend®, Roundup Ready 2 Yield®, Roundup Ready®, Roundup Transorb®, Roundup WeatherMAX®, Roundup Xtend®, Roundup®, SmartStax®, TagTeam®, Transorb®, VaporGrip®, VT Double PRO®, VT Triple PRO® and XtendiMax® are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC. Used under license. BlackHawk®, Conquer® and GoldWing® are registered trademarks of Nufarm Agriculture Inc. Valtera™ is a trademark of Valent U.S.A. Corporation. Fortenza® and Visivio™ are trademarks of a Syngenta group company. DuPont™ and Lumivia® are trademarks of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Used under license. LibertyLink® and the Water Droplet Design are trademarks of Bayer. Used under license. Herculex® is a registered trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. Used under license. Poncho® and VOTiVO™ are trademarks of Bayer. Used under license.

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

BUSINESS

Getting ‘Thank you!’ right An honest, will-timed pat on the back can be the best way to boost employee productivity

appy employees are 12 per cent more productive than unsatisfied employees, according to at least three unrelated studies. Over an eight-hour work day, in other words, a happy employee is going to put in the equivalent of a full hour and a half more productivity than an unhappy employee. Over a month, that’s 30 hours of productivity. And in the context of a year, it’s a whopping 360 hours, i.e. nine full-time work weeks. Using that logic, you can’t afford NOT to make and keep your team happy. But how? If your brain jumps right to wages and salary, you’re wrong. Yes, money matters, but it doesn’t matter as much as you might think. Psychologists say wage boosts rarely and only temporarily bump employees’ attitudes about their work and employer. So, the good news is that investing in your team’s happiness won’t demand bumping their salaries to unsustainable heights. Job perks? Nope. Generally happiness can’t be bought that way either. While perks like extra vacation time, use of technology or vehicles, even big benefits like free accommodation are no doubt valuable, they very quickly become expectations rather than wildly appreciated gifts. Instead, it turns out the best, most impactful way to motivate, retain and satisfy employees is authentic, personalized, regular (but not routine) appreciation. In other words, your employees need your gratitude and thanks. “Businesses that haven’t tapped into appreciation and celebration — whether that’s a big corporation or a single farmer — have lower productivity, less innovativeness, less creativity, lower morale, higher absenteeism,” says Debbie Lawrence, a business coach and president of Abundant Living Inc., who leads business skill development programs for farmers through Nova Scotia’s Department of Agriculture. “What we do know is that people are hungry for feedback, for acknowledgement, for gratitude. People don’t leave organizations. They leave people. When you do it right, people will stay.” But wait — there’s a catch. (You knew it sounded too good to be true). In order to make your employees truly feel appreciated, you have to provide the kind of appreciation that genuinely and individually works for each employee. Dr. Gary Chapman, best known for his bestselling work on the five “Love Languages” of relationships, also completed research into the languages of celebration and

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Madeleine Baerg

appreciation at work. What he found — as the very best bosses and people managers intuitively understand — is that there is enormous variability in how employees want to be thanked and appreciated. “For some people, celebrating — a party, a lunch, an event — would fill up their emotional tank to overflowing,” says Lawrence. “For others, having a boss or a customer acknowledge effort or success would make them feel great.” Even within the language of affirmation, however, there are all kinds of different dialects. “Some who would say: ‘Why are you celebrating me for doing what I do? Of course I’m great at that!’” says Lawrence. “Instead, what would fill them up would be if someone talked, not about what they’ve done, but about who they are as a person, describing them as a person of integrity or honesty. Still others would say, ‘No, none of those things do anything for me. I’d feel celebrated if you acknowledge my specific skill set.’” While the variety in how people like to be thanked might sound strange, consider this: as a farmer, you probably don’t fall into the easiest or most obvious appreciation channels either. “What we non-farmers might see and celebrate would be things like: ‘Wow! You had an amazing product this year or an amazing crop yield… or you improved profit margin by x per cent!’” says Lawrence. “But many farmers might respond to that kind of acknowledgement saying, ‘Well yes. Of course. That’s what I do. That’s what I have to do.’ They wouldn’t see it as worthy of celebration. There are so many different dialects in the language of acknowledgement and so many different ways to describe success; you have to find what feels authentic.” Lawrence says a major frustration for employers is not understanding why their efforts at acknowledging or rewarding employees sometimes fall flat. “Employers will say to me: ‘I’ve done A, B and C and it works for some but not for others.’ What I tell them is they’re not hitting the language of appreciation for some of their employees. Sure, anyone is going to like any kind of celebration. But when you get it really right and hit that sweet spot, it fills them up.” If you’re not sure how to start appreciating others in ways that genuinely work for them, open up the lines of communication: ask each employee what would be meaningful to him or her. Remember there are as many unique and “right” ways to celebrate a

team member as there are unique people. If someone isn’t sure what they need or doesn’t know how to ask for their ideal forms of recognition and appreciation, just watch them. Most people tend to offer appreciation in ways that work for themselves, since that’s what they assume others need too. Then, look for success, effort, and opportunities to celebrate the individual. According to multiple studies, the best workplace acknowledgements are frequent, varied and unexpected. At first, actively seeking chances to appreciate and celebrate may feel almost awkward. A big part of the problem may be agriculture’s “culture.” Here’s why: in some businesses, celebration of achievements, of milestones and of people is an accepted, expected part of doing business. Unfortunately, that’s a lot less common in the case in agriculture. Part of the issue is functional; farming’s cyclicality, its dependence on external weather and market forces, and the blurred lines between life and work mean it can be hard to set defined goals and benchmarks. Because goals and celebrating go hand-in-hand, a lack of goal-setting usually limits opportunities to celebrate. Ultimately, the less you celebrate, the less you’ll think of celebrating. If you’re not celebrating milestones and achievements, you’re probably also not celebrating or actively appreciating the people who helped make those milestones and achievements happen. “In other businesses, you’re much more apt to see people strategic planning, identifying clear goals, developing or intentionally changing. Farmers measure and experience their business differently. Because their business is also their life, how they operate their business is just how they are on the Earth. A lot of the things they do, they don’t even take time to acknowledge,” says Lawrence. There’s more to farming’s non-celebratory tendencies, though. As a sector, farming tends towards the traditional. Though “traditional” carries with it excellent, positive values like work ethic, dedication, constancy and resilience, its very nature dampens celebration. “As a generalization, farmers — especially older farmers — are very stoic about the work they do,” says Lawrence. “The notion of celebrating often feels very foreign.” Unfortunately, whatever holds you back from celebrating may also hold your farm business back from success. (Remember those nine weeks of productivity you’re losing if you’ve got a less-than-satisfied employee?) Being out of the habit of celebration can be particularly bad news on family farms, where older farmers may accidentally promote dissatisfaction, decreased commitment and decreased success in the younger generation, ultimately limiting the chance of a successful intergenerational farm transfer. “Younger farmers are often hungry for celebration, but no one has carved a path for them because that wasn’t the tradition,” says Lawrence. “One of the big

Ultimately, the less you celebrate, the less you’ll think of celebrating,” warns business coach Debbie Lawrence problems in the farming sector is succession. Children don’t want to take over the family farm. I think part of the problem is that what they see is mostly negative. Farming is really hard work, yes, but there is also lots that is worth being excited about, acknowledging, celebrating.” Valuing celebration may not come naturally for you. But if you have farm hands or family members participating in farming activities, don’t assume that because you feel you don’t need celebration or active acknowledgement, they don’t either. The reality is even the most stoic farmer needs positive feedback and acknowledgement more than he or she might ever want to admit. “Celebration is the motivator to show up and work really hard to get to that achievement,” says Lawrence. “Just for our own sanity and sense of self-worth, we need to make sure we acknowledge successes. Ultimately, celebration is what keeps us going. Otherwise, what’s the point?” CG COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / JANUARY 2018

LEADERSHIP

By Darrell Wade / Farm Life Financial Planning Group

Intuition: When it’s the right time

he best leaders today seem to have a keen sense of when to make changes. The y know when to share an example of their own struggle and when to motivate the next generation. It’s their gut instinct — that feeling we all get during times of decision-making. It’s the best leaders who know when to use their gut instinct along with well-calculated risk to make decisions. Many of you have been following this series on leadership and you know the traits I firmly believe make someone shine as a leader: collaboration, empowerment, focus, integrity and intuition. Intuition is an interesting one to write about. How do we explain it? It’s that feeling that develops out of our experience, and that we learn to trust over time as we build confidence in our decision-making. It’s those moments when we jump on the haybine to cut hay when others wouldn’t because the forecast called for rain. In this area, it’s about harvesting a crop of wheat and then drilling beans back in for a shot at a double-crop year. It’s when your son suggests we bring the heifer in a few days early because she was bred to a certain sire that may require some assistance — you just have that feeling he is right and it might be tonight that she delivers. It’s about getting it, without really knowing how or why you know. You agree, and of course the next day he tells you how he assisted her in the night and delivered another healthy next-gen prize heifer for the herd. Intuitive leaders are powerfully aware of what is happening around them — they sense and feel things deeply. They just know. And a big part of that is knowing how to support the next generation in a collaborative environment. It’s empowering people to share their thoughts and ideas, and knowing when to push for answers and when to back away. It might be when your son or daughter makes a suggestion against the norm, something you haven’t planted, using a sire you have never heard of, working the ground differently or trying a different 48

JANUARY 2018 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

brand of seed. They provide you with enough confidence, and your gut just tells you it’s the right time to let them step up, be engaged and cultivate new ideas for growth. It’s a chance for both generations to learn, and an opportunity to transition leadership. It’s hard at times like this to not do what we would normally do — avoid risk by maintaining control of the situation with our years of experience. However, as parents of the next generation, these are the moments when we must let our sons and daughters step up and develop their instincts and their decision-making skills. We must show them we have confidence in them and their abilities. When we have multiple children involved in the farm, it also brings additional challenges in terms of deciding when it’s the right time for each child to take on more responsibility. As parents, it’s difficult to find the balance between when we might think the time is the right time and what the other family members think and feel. We try our best to be fair to all our children, but sometimes your gut tells you this one is ready, regardless of age. We must utilize strong communication and intuitive leadership to find the strengths in each of our children and empower them with opportunities to lead in those areas. Intuitive leadership isn’t about setting trends. It’s about making difficult decisions based on experience, solid business planning and instinct. Sometimes it’s hard to explain, but you just know it’s the right thing to do. Like those farms that quit shipping milk and moved to cash crop, or the first to have rooftop solar on their barn. When people, including our children, use instinct to do things differently, it challenges our own intuitions, and the risks challenge our strength. It can make us nervous, but in the successful cases, they were well-calculated risks. Yes, they had intuitive leadership which helped them with the ideas, but they also had a team around them to help make good decisions. They followed a plan, with everyone pulling in the same direction.

We can all relate to that feeling of pride when it was our intuition that helped us make decisions, when you baled that hay when your gut said “go” even when it looked like rain or when the heifer did calve a few days early — good thing we brought her in because she needed some help. As leaders, we need to be ready to offer opportunities for the next generation to cultivate confidence in their intuitive decision-making skills. We need to use our intuition to give them opportunities where they can feel pride in cultivating their own solutions. And while I am confident all families will experience some challenges when working together — each unique to their own family dynamic — the most successful families have adopted an approach they use to solve dayto-day challenges together without someone guiding them each step of the way. B y i n t u i t i ve l y e m p ow e r i n g o u r next-generation leaders, we foster the confidence and the reactions the next generation will need to lead the farm into a successful future. Strong leaders wake up with a sense of mindfulness, realizing that today our children are developing faster than previous generations — they have been good students of their mentor’s work. Embrace this, and if it feels right, go ahead and let them step up, empower them to take a lead and share a role or key decision — you know it will all work out. CG

Darrell Wade is a certified family enterprise adviser and a CFA-certified farm adviser. He is the founder of Farm Life Financial Planning Group www. farmlifefinancial.ca and can be reached directly at darrell@farmlifefinancial.ca.

Rick Bieber

IFAO Conference Feb 27-28, 2018 Lamplighter Inn, London, ON

The IFAO’s annual conference brings together Ontario’s most progressive farmers. This year, we’ve got another world-class line up of speakers and over 20 farmer-to-farmer breakout sessions for you to share your ideas and pick up some new ones along the way. Tuesday, February 27 Derek & Tannis Axten

Ole Green

8:00am

Registration opens

9:00

Dr. Bob Barr, Purdue Farming for Water Quality

10:30

Dr. Kristine Nichols The Biology of Soil Health

11:15

Derek & Tannis Axten, SK Farming With a Microscope

12:00pm

Lunch (optional Lunch ‘n Learn: Social Media 101)